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Publishers' Note 



The volume The Evidence in the Case is based upon an article 
by the Hon. James M. Beck, which came into print in the 
" New York Times" of October 25th. The article in question 
made so deep an impression with thinking citizens on both 
sides of the Atlantic that it has been translated into a number 
of European languages, and some 400,000 copies have been sold 
in England alone. 

In making this acknowledgment, which is due for the courtesy 
of "The Times" in permitting an article prepared for its 
columns to be utilized as the basis for the book, it is in order 
for the publishers to explain to the readers that the material 
in the article has itself been rewritten and amplified, while the 
book contains, in addition to this original paper, a number of 
further chapters comprising together more than six times the 
material of the first article. 

The present book is an independent work, and is deserving 
of consideration on the part of all citizens who are interested 
in securing authoritative information on the issues of the great 
European contest. 

New York, December 12, 1914 



The 
Evidence in the Case 

A Discussion of the Moral Responsibility for the 

War of 1914, as Disclosed by the Diplomatic 

Records of England, Germany, Russia, 

France, and Belgium 



By 

James M. Beck, LL.D. 

Late Assistant Attorney-General of the U. S, 



With an Introduction by 
Hon. Joseph H. Choate 

Late U. S. Ambassador to Great Britain 



" Did these tones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggats 
with 'em ? Mine ache to think on't." 

Hamlet — Act V., Sc. I. 



Revised Edition, with Additional Material 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

£be Knickerbocker iPrees 

1915 



Copyright, 1914, by 
JAMES M. BECK 

Copyright, 1915, by 
JAMES M. BECK 

{For Revised Edition) 



Ube "tenfcfeerbocfeer lpress, IRew lorfe 

MAR 161915 
©GL A 3971 4 4 



TO 

ALBERT, OF BELGIUM 

"Every Inch a King" 



Justum, ac tenacem propositi virum 
Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 
Non vultus instantis tyranni, 

Mente quatit solida, neque Auster 

Dux inquieti turbidus Adrise, 

Nee fulminantis magna manus Jovis. 

Si f ractus illabatur orbis, 

Impavidum ferient ruinae. 

Horace. 



INTRODUCTION 

BY THE HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE, FORMER AMERICAN 
AMBASSADOR TO GREAT BRITAIN 1 

For five months now all people who read at all 
have been reading about the horrible war that is 
devastating Europe and shedding the best blood 
of the people of five great nations. In fact, they 
have had no time to read anything else, and every- 
thing that is published about it is seized upon with 
great avidity. No wonder, then, that Mr. James 
M. Beck's book, The Evidence in the Case, pub- 
lished by G. P. Putnam's Sons, which has grown 
out of the article by him contributed to the New 
York Times Sunday Magazine, has been warmly 
welcomed both here and in England as a valuable 
addition to the literature of the day. 

An able and clear-headed lawyer and advocate, 
he presents the matter in the unique form of a legal 
argument, based upon an analysis of the diplomatic 
records submitted by England, Germany, Russia, 
France, and Belgium, as "A Case in the Supreme 

1 Reprinted, by permission, from the N. Y. Times. 

V 



vi Introduction 

Court of Civilization," and the conclusions to be 
deduced as to the moral responsibility for the war. 

The whole argument is founded upon the idea 
that there is such a thing as a public conscience of 
the world, which must and will necessarily pass 
final judgment upon the conduct of the parties 
concerned in this infernal struggle. Many times 
in the course of the book he refers emphatically to 
that " decent respect to the opinions of mankind" 
to which Jefferson appealed in our Declaration of 
Independence as the final arbiter upon our conduct 
in throwing off the British yoke and declaring our 
right to be an independent nation. That this 
"public opinion of the world" is the final tribunal 
upon all great international contests is illustrated 
by the fact that all mankind, including Great 
Britain herself, has long ago adjudged that our 
great Declaration was not only just, but necessary 
for the progress of mankind. 

It is evident from his brief preface that Mr. 
Beck is a sincere admirer of historic Germany, 
and on the eve of the war he was at Weimar, after 
a brief visit to a little village near Erfurt, where 
one of his ancestors was born, who had migrated 
at an early date to Pennsylvania, a Common wealth 
whose founder had made a treaty with the Indians 
which, so far from being treated as a "mere scrap 



Introduction vii 

of paper," was never broken. Like many Ameri- 
cans, Mr. Beck is of mixed ancestry, being in part 
English and in part Swiss-German. He has there- 
fore viewed the great question objectively, and 
without any racial prejudice. 

A careful study of the diplomatic correspondence 
that preceded the outbreak of the war had con- 
vinced Mr. Beck that Germany was chiefly re- 
sponsible for it, and he proceeds con amove to 
demonstrate the truth of this conviction by the 
most earnest and forceful presentation of the case. 

Forensic lawyers in the cases they present are 
about half the time on the wrong side, or what 
proves by the final judgment to have been the 
wrong side, but it is always easy to tell from the 
manner of presentation whether they themselves 
are thoroughly convinced of the justice of the side 
which they advocate. It is evident that Mr. Beck 
did not undertake to convince "the Supreme Court 
of Civilization" until he was himself thoroughly 
persuaded of the justice of his cause, that the 
invasion of Belgium by Germany was not only a 
gross breach of existing treaties, but was in viola- 
tion of settled international law, and a crime 
against humanity never to be forgotten, a crime 
which converted that peaceful and prosperous 
country into a human slaughterhouse, reeking 



viii Introduction 

with the blood of four great nations. How any 
intelligent lawyer could have come to any other 
conclusion it is not easy to imagine, since Germany 
confessed its crime while in the very act of com- 
mitting it, for on the very day that the German 
troops crossed the Belgian frontier and hostilities 
began, the Imperial Chancellor at the great 
session of the Reichstag on August 4th declared, 
to use his own words : 

Necessity knows no law. Our troops have occu- 
pied Luxemburg, and have possibly already entered 
on Belgian soil. That is a breach of international 
law. . . . We were jorced to ignore the rightful pro- 
tests of the Governments of Luxemburg and Belgium, 
and the injustice — / speak openly — the injustice we 
thereby commit, we will try to make good as soon as our 
military aims have been attained. Anybody who is 
threatened as we are threatened and is fighting for 
his highest possessions can have only one thought — 
how he is to hack his way through. 

Thank God, their military aims have not yet 
been attained, and from present appearances are 
not likely to be, but, as Mr. Beck believes, Ger- 
many will still be held by the judgment of mankind 
to make good the damage done. 

In reviewing the diplomatic correspondence 
published by Germany that preceded the out- 



Introduction ix 

break of the war, Mr. Beck lays great stress, and 
we think justly, upon the obvious suppression of 
evidence by Germany, in omitting substantially all 
the important correspondence on vital points that 
passed between Germany and Austria, and the 
suppression of important evidence in judicial 
proceedings always carries irresistible weight 
against the party guilty of it. While England and 
France and Russia were pressing Germany to 
influence and control Austria in the interests of 
peace, not a word is disclosed of what, if anything, 
the German Foreign Office said to Austria toward 
that end. To quote Mr. Beck's own words : 

Among the twenty-seven communications ap- 
pended to the German White Paper, it is most signi- 
ficant that not a single communication is given of 
the many which passed from the Foreign Office of 
Berlin to that of Vienna, and only two which passed 
from the German Ambassador in Vienna to the 
German Chancellor, and the purpose of this sup- 
pression is even more clearly indicated by the 
complete failure of Austria to submit any of its 
diplomatic records to the scrutiny of a candid world. 

Notwithstanding the disavowal given by the 
German Ambassador at Petrograd to the Rus- 
sian Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the Ger- 
man Government had no knowledge of the text 



x Introduction 

of the Austrian note before it was handed in, 
and did not exercise any influence on its contents, 
Mr. Beck establishes clearly by the admissions of 
the German Foreign Office itself that it was con- 
sulted by Austria previous to the ultimatum, and 
that it not only approved of its course, but literally 
gave to Austria carte blanche to proceed. And the 
German Ambassador to the United States for- 
mally admitted in an article in The Independent 
of September 7, 1914, that "Germany had ap- 
proved in advance the Austrian ultimatum to 
Servia." 

This brutal ultimatum by a great nation of fifty 
millions of people, making impossible demands 
against a little one of four millions which had itself 
just emerged from two conflicts and was still suffer- 
ing from exhaustion — an ultimatum which set all 
the nations of Europe in agitation — is proved to 
have been jointly concocted by the two members of 
the Triple Alliance, Germany and Austria. But 
the third member of that Alliance, Italy, found it 
to be an act of aggression on their part which 
brought on the war, and that the terms of the 
Triple Alliance, therefore, did not bind her to take 
any part. 

The peace parleys which passed between the 
several nations involved are carefully reviewed by 



Introduction xi 

Mr. Beck, who concludes, as we think justly, that 
up to the 28th of July, when the German Imperial 
Chancellor sent for the English Ambassador and 
announced the refusal of his Government to accept 
the conference of the Powers proposed by Sir 
Edward Grey, every proposal to preserve peace 
had come from the Triple Entente, and that every 
such proposal had met with an uncompromising 
negative from Austria, and either that or obstruc- 
tive quibbles from Germany. 

At this point, the sudden return of the Kaiser to 
Berlin from his annual holiday in Norway, which 
his own Foreign Office regretted as a step taken on 
his Majesty's own initiative and which they feared 
might cause speculation and excitement, and his 
personal intervention from that time until his 
troops invaded Luxemburg and he made his abrupt 
demand upon the Belgian Government for per- 
mission to cross its territory are reviewed with 
great force and effect by Mr. Beck, with the con- 
clusion on his part that the Kaiser, who by a timely 
word to Austria might have prevented all the 
terrible trouble that followed, was the supremely 
guilty party, and that such will be the verdict of 
history. 

Mr. Beck's review of the case of Belgium is 
extremely interesting, and his conclusion that 



xii Introduction 

England, France, Russia, and Belgium can await 
with confidence the world's final verdict that their 
quarrel was just, rests safely upon the plea of 
"Guilty" by Germany, a conclusion which seems 
to have been already plainly declared by most of 
the civilized nations of the world. 

We think that Mr. Beck's opinion that England 
and France were taken unawares and were wholly 
unprepared for war is a little too strongly expressed. 
France, certainly, had been making ready for war 
with Germany ever since the great conflict of 1870 
had resulted in her loss of Alsace and Lorraine, and 
had had a fixed and unalterable determination to 
get them back when she could, although it is evi- 
dent that she did not expect her opportunity to 
come just when and as it did. That Great Britain 
had no present expectation of immediate war with 
Germany is clearly obvious. That she had long 
been apprehending the danger of it in the indefinite 
future is very clear, but that Sir Edward Grey and 
the Government and the people that he represented 
did all that they possibly could to prevent the war 
seems to be clearly established. 

Mr. Beck's book is so extremely interesting 
from beginning to end that it is difficult when once 
begun to lay it down and break off the reading, and 
we shall not be surprised to hear, not only that it 



Introduction xiii 

has had an immense sale in England and America, 
but that its translation into the languages of the 
other nations of Europe has been demanded. 

Joseph H. Choate. 

New York, January 10, 1915. 



FOREWORD 

On the eve of the Great War I sat one 
evening in the reading room of the Hotel Erb- 
prinz in classic Weimar. I had spent ten happy- 
days in Thuringia, and had visited with deep 
interest a little village near Erfurt, where one 
of my forbears was born. I had seen Jena, 
from whose historic university this paternal an- 
cestor had gone as a missionary to North America 
in the middle of the eighteenth century. This 
simple-minded German pietist had cherished the 
apparent delusion that even the uncivilized 
Indians of the American wilderness might be 
taught — the Bernhardis and Treitschkes to the 
contrary notwithstanding — that to increase the 
political power of a nation by the deliberate and 
highly systematized destruction of its neighbors 
was not the truest political ideal, even of an 
Indian tribe. 

This missionary had gone most fittingly to the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where its enlight- 
ened founder had already given a demonstration of 
the truth that a treaty of peace, even though not 

XV 



xvi Foreword 

formally expressed in a " scrap of paper, " might be 
kept by white men and so-called savages with 
scrupulous fidelity for at least three quarters of a 
century, for even the cynical Voltaire said in sin- 
cerest admiration that the compact between William 
Penn and the Indians was the only treaty which 
was never reduced to parchment, nor ratified by 
an oath and yet was never broken. When Penn, 
the great apostle of peace, died in England, a dis- 
appointed, ruined, and heart-broken man, and the 
news reached the Indians in their wigwams along 
the banks of the Delaware, they had for him, 
whom they called the " white Truth Teller" so 
deep a sense of gratitude that they sent to his 
widow a sympathetic gift of valuable skins, in 
memory of the "man of unbroken friendship 
and inviolate treaties." 

These reflections in a time of broken friendships 
and violated treaties are not calculated to fill the 
man of the twentieth century with any justifiable 
pride. 

My mind, however, as I spent the quiet evening 
in the historic inn of Thackeray's Pumpernickel, 
did not revert to these far distant associations but 
was full of other thoughts suggested by the most 
interesting section of Germany, through which it 
had been my privilege to pass. 



Foreword xvii 

I had visited Eisenach and reverentially stood 
within the room where the great master of music, 
John Sebastian Bach, had first seen the light of 
day, and as I saw the walls that he loved and which 
are forever hallowed because they once sheltered 
this divine genius, the question occurred to me 
whether he may not have done more for Ger- 
many with his immortal harmonies, which are the 
foundation of all modern music, than all the 
Treitschkes, and Bernhardis, with their gospel of 
racial hatred, pseudo-patriotism, and imperial 
aggrandizement . 

I had climbed the slopes of the Wartburg and 
from Luther's room had gazed with delight upon 
the lovely Thuringian forests. Quite apart from 
any ecclesiastical considerations that room seemed 
to suggest historic Germany in its best estate. 
It recalled that scene of undying interest at the 
Diet of Worms, when the peaceful adherence 
to an ideal was shown to be mightier than the 
power of the greatest empire since the fall of 
Rome. The monk of Wittenburg, standing alone 
in the presence of the great Emperor, Charles 
the Fifth, and the representatives of the most 
powerful religious organization that the world 
has ever known, with his simple, u Hier stehe 
ich; ich kann nicht anders," represented the 



xviii Foreword 

truest soul and highest ideal of the nobler 
Germany. 

These and other glorious memories, suggested 
by Eisenach, Frankfort, Erfurt, Weimar, Jena, 
and Leipzig, made this pilgrimage of intense in- 
terest, and almost the only discord was the sight 
of the Leipzig Voelkerschlacht Denkmal, probably 
the largest, and certainly the ugliest monument 
in all the world. It has but one justification, in 
that it commemorates war, and no monument ever 
more fully symbolized by its own colossal cru- 
dity the moral ugliness of that most ghastly phe- 
nomenon of human life. Let us pray that in the 
event of final victory Prussia will not commission 
the architects of the Leipzig monument, or the 
imperial designer of the Sieges-Allee to rebuild that 
Gothic masterpiece, the Rheims Cathedral. That 
day in Leipzig an Alsatian cartoonist, Hansi, had 
been sentenced to one year's imprisonment for a 
harmless cartoon in a book for children, in which 
the most supersensitive should have found occa- 
sion for nothing, except a passing smile. 

On the library table of the Erbprinz, I found a 
large book, which proved to be a Bismarck 
memorial volume. It contained hundreds of 
pictures glorifying and almost deifying the Iron 
Chancellor. One particularly arrested my atten- 



Foreword xix 

tion . It was the familiar picture of the negotiation s 
for peace between Bismarck and Jules Favre in 
the terrible winter of 1871. The French states- 
man has sunk into a chair in abject despair, 
struck speechless by the demands of the conqueror. 
Bismarck stands triumphant and his proud bear- 
ing and arrogant manner fail to suggest any such 
magnanimous courtesy as that with which Grant 
accepted the sword of Lee at Appomattox. The 
picture breathed the very spirit of " V<z victis." 
Had a French artist painted this picture, I could 
understand it, for it would serve effectively to 
stimulate undying hatred in the French heart. 
It seemed strange that a German artist should 
treat a subject, calling for a spirit of most delicate 
courtesy, in a manner which represented Prussian 
militarism in its most arrogant form. 

This unworthy picture reminded me of a later 
scene in the Reichstag, in which the Iron Chancel- 
lor, after reviewing with complacency the profit- 
able results of Germany's deliberately provoked 
wars against Denmark, Austria, and France, 
added the pious ejaculation : 

Wir Deutsche fiirchten Gott sonst nichts in der Welt. 
(We Germans fear God but nothing else in the world.) 

It is not necessary to impeach the sincerity of 



xx Foreword 

this pious glorification of the successful results of 
land grabbing. The mind in moments of exal- 
tation plays strange tricks with the soul. Bis- 
marck may have dissembled on occasion but he 
was never a hypocrite. It is the spirit which 
inspired this boastful and arrogant speech, which 
has so powerfully stimulated Prussian Junkerism, 
to which I wish to refer. 

Had an American uttered these words we would 
have treated the boast as a vulgar exhibition of 
provincial " spread-eagleism," such as character- 
ized certain classes in this country before the Civil 
War, and which Charles Dickens somewhat over- 
caricatured in Martin Chuzzlewit, but in the mouth 
of Bismarck, with his cynical indifference to moral 
considerations in questions of statecraft, this piece 
of rhetorical spread double-eagleism, manifests the 
spirit of the Prussian military caste since its too 
easy triumph over France in 1870-1871^ triumph, 
which may yet prove the greatest calamity 
that ever befell Germany, not only in the seeds 
of hatred which it sowed, of which there is now a 
harvest of blood past precedent, but also in the 
development of an arrogant pride which has pro- 
foundly affected to its prejudice the noble Germany 
of Luther, Bach, Beethoven. Goethe, Schiller, Kant, 
Humboldt, and Lessing. 



Foreword xxi 

To say that Germany " fears" nothing save 
God is contradicted by its whole diplomatic his- 
tory of the last half century. In this it is not 
peculiar. The curse of modern statecraft is the 
largely unreasoning fear which all nations have 
for their neighbors. England has feared Germany 
only less than Germany has feared England and 
this nervous apprehension has bred jealousy, 
hatred, suspicion, until to-day all civilized nations 
are reaping a harvest horrible beyond expression. 

The whole history of Germany since 1870 has 
shown a constant, and at times an unreasoning 
fear, first of France, then of the Slav, and latterly 
and in its most acute form, of England. I do not 
mean that Germany has been or is now animated 
by any spirit of craven cowardice. There has not 
been in recorded history a braver nation, and 
the dauntless courage with which, even at this 
hour, thousands of Germans are going with patri- 
otic songs on their lips to "their graves as to 
their beds," is worthy of all admiration. 

The whole statecraft of Germany for over forty 
years has been inspired by an exaggerated appre- 
hension of the intentions of its great neighbors. 
This fear followed swiftly upon the triumph of 
1 87 1, for Germany early showed its apprehension 
that France might recover its military strength. 



xxii Foreword 

When that fallen but indomitable foe again strug- 
gled to its feet in 1875, the Prussian military 
caste planned to give the stricken gladiator the 
coup de grace and was only prevented by the in- 
tervention of England and Russia. Later this 
acute and neurotic apprehension took the form 
of a hatred and fear of Russia, and this not- 
withstanding the fact that the Kaiser had in 
the Russo-Japanese War exalted the Czar as the 
" champion of Christianity" and the "representa- 
tive of the white race" in the Far East. 

When the psychology of the present conflict 
is considered by future historians, this neu- 
ropathic feature of Germany's foreign policy 
will be regarded as a contributing element of first 
importance. 

Latterly the Furor Teutonicus was especially 
directed against England, and although it was 
obvious to the dispassionate observer in neutral 
countries that no nation was making less prepar- 
ations or was in point of fact so illy prepared 
for a conflict as England, nevertheless Germany, 
with a completeness of preparation such as the 
world has never witnessed, was constantly indulg- 
ing in a very hysteria of fear at the imaginary 
designs of England upon Germany's standing as a 
world power. 



Foreword xxiii 

Luther's famous saying, already quoted, and 
Bismarck's blustering speech to the Reichstag 
measure the difference between the Germany of 
the Reformation and the Prussia of to-day. 

I refuse to believe that this Bismarckian attitude 
is that of the German people. If a censored press 
permitted them to know the real truth with respect 
to the present crisis, that people, still sound in 
heart and steadfast in soul, would repudiate 
a policy of duplicity, cunning, and arrogance, 
which has precipitated their great nation into 
an abyss of disaster. The normal German is an 
admirable citizen, quiet, peaceable, thrifty, in- 
dustrious, faithful, efficient, and affectionate to 
the verge of sentimentality. He, and not the 
Junker, has made Germany the most efficient po- 
litical State in the world. If to his genius for 
organization could be added the individualism of 
the American, the resultant product would be 
incomparable. A combination of the German 
fortiter in re with the American suaviter in modo 
would make the most efficient republic in the 
world. 

The Germany of Luther, that still survives and 
will survive when " Junkerism " is a dismal memory 
of the past, believes that "the supreme wisdom, 
the paramount vitality, is an abiding honesty, the 



xxiv Foreword 

doing of right, because right is right, in scorn of 
consequence." 

That the German people have rallied with en- 
thusiastic unanimity to the flag in this great crisis, 
I do not question. This is, in part, due to the 
fact that the truth has never yet been disclosed to 
them, and is not likely to be until the war is over. 
They have been taught that in a time of profound 
peace England, France, and Russia deliberately 
initiated a war of aggression to destroy the com- 
mercial power of Germany. The documents 
hereinafter analyzed will show how utterly 
baseless this fiction is. Even if the truth were 
known, no one can blame the German, who now 
rallies to his flag with such superhuman devo- 
tion, for whether the cause of his country is just 
or unjust, its prestige, and perhaps its very ex- 
istence, is at stake, and there should be for the 
rank and file of the German people only a feeling 
of profound pity and deep admiration. Edmund 
Burke once said, "We must pardon something to 
the spirit of liberty." We can paraphrase it and 
say in this crisis, "We must pardon something to 
the spirit of patriotism." The whole-hearted de- 
votion of this great nation to its flag is worthy of 
the best traditions of the Teutonic race. Thor 
did not wield his thunder hammer with greater 



Foreword xxv 

effect than these descendants of the race of Wotan. 
If the ethical question depended upon relative 
bravery, who could decide between the German, 
"faithiul unto death"; the English soldier, stand- 
ing like a stone wall against fearful odds, the 
French or Russian not less brave or resolute, and 
the Belgian, now as in Caesar's time the "bravest of 
all the tribes of Gaul." 

No consideration, either of sympathy, admira- 
tion, or pity, can in any manner affect the deter- 
mination of the great ethical question as to the 
moral responsibility for the present crime against 
civilization. That must be determined by the 
facts as they have been developed, and the nations 
and individuals who are responsible for this 
world-wide catastrophe must be held to a strict 
accountability. The truth of history inexorably 
demands this. 

To determine where this moral responsibility 
lies is the purpose of these pages. 

In determining this question Posterity will dis- 
tinguish between the military caste, headed by the 
Kaiser and the Crown Prince, which precipitated 
this great calamity, and the German people. 

The very secrecy of the plot against the peace 
of the world and the failure to disclose to the 
German nation the diplomatic communications 



xxvi Foreword 

hereinafter quoted, strongly suggest that this 
detestable war is not merely a crime against civili- 
zation, but also against the deceived and misled 
German people. They have a vision and are 
essentially progressive and peace-loving in their 
national characteristics, while the ideals of their 
military caste are those of the dark ages. 

One day the German people will know the full 
truth and then there will be a dreadful reckoning 
for those who have plunged a noble nation into 
this unfathomable gulf of suffering. 

Though the mills of God grind slowly, 
Yet they grind exceeding small, 

Though with patience He stands waiting, 
With exactness grinds He all. 

Or to put this ancient Greek proverb in its 
German form: 
"Gottes Muhle geht langsam aber die mahll fein." 

James M. Beck. 
New York, November 30, 1914. 



TEbe Witnesses 

ENGLAND 
HIS MAJESTY, KING GEORGE V. 

Mr. Asquith Premier. 

Mr. Beaumont Councilor of Embassy at 

Constantinople. 

Sir P. Bertie Ambassador at Paris. 

Sir G. Buchanan Ambassador at St. Peters- 
burg. 

Sir M. De Bunsen Ambassador at Vienna. 

Sir E. Goschen Ambassador at Berlin. 

Sir Edward Grey Foreign Secretary. 

Sir A. Johnstone Minister at Luxemburg. 

Sir Arthur Nicholson Under Secretary for Foreign 

Affairs. 

Sir R. Rodd Ambassador to Italy. 

SirH. Rumbold Councilor of Embassy at 

Berlin. 

Sir F. Villiers Minister to Belgium. 

GERMANY 
HIS MAJESTY, EMPEROR WILLIAM II. 

Herr von Below (Saleske *) Minister to Belgium. 

Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg Chancellor. 

Herr von Buch Minister at Luxemburg. 

i Herr von Below. Saleske is referred to in despatches as Herr von Below, 
xxvii 



xxviii The Witnesses 

Herr von Heeringen Minister of War. 

Herr von Jagow , . . . Secretary of State. 

Prince Lichnowsky Ambassador at London. 

Herr von Mueller Minister at The Hague. 

Count Pourtales Ambassador at St. Peters- 
burg. 

Baron von Schoen Ambassador at Paris. 

Herr von Zimmermann Under Secretary of State. 

Herr von Tschirschky Ambassador at Vienna. 

FRANCE 

PRESIDENT RAYMOND POINCARE 

M. Viviani. Premier of France. 

M. Berthelot Of the French Ministry for 

Foreign Affairs. 

M. Cambon Ambassador to England. 

M. Klobukowski Minister to Belgium. 

M. De Margerie Of the French Diplomatic 

Service. 

RUSSIA 

HIS MAJESTY, EMPEROR NICHOLAS II. 

M. Sazonof Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

Count Benckendorff Ambassador at London. 

M. Bronewsky . Charge d 'Affaires at Berlin. 

M. De Etter Councilor of Embassy at 

London. 

M. Isvolsky Ambassador to France. 

Prince Kudachef Councilor of Embassy at 

Vienna. 

M. Salviati Consul General at Fiume. 

M. Schebeko Ambassador to Austria. 

M. Sevastopoulo Charge d'Affaires at Paris. 



The Witnesses xxix 

M. Strandtman Charge d'Affaires at Bel- 
grade. 

M. Suchomlinof Minister for War. 

M. De Swerbeew Ambassador to Germany. 

BELGIUM 

HIS MAJESTY, KING ALBERT 

M. D avignon Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

Baron von der Elst . . Secretary General to Minis- 
try of Foreign Affairs. 
Count Errembault de Dudzeele . . Minister at Vienna. 

Baron Fallon Minister at The Hague. 

Baron Grenier Minister at Madrid. 

Baron Guillaume Minister at Paris. 

Count de Lalaing Minister at London. 

SERVIA 

HIS MAJESTY, KING PETER 

M. Pachitch Premier and Minister of 

Foreign Affairs. 

M. Boschkovitch Minister at London. 

Dr. Patchou Minister of Finance. 

AUSTRIA 

HIS MAJESTY, EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH 

Count Berchtold Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

Count Clary und Aldringen ..... Minister at Brussels. 

Baron Giesl von Gieslingen Minister at Belgrade. 

Baron Macchio Councilor of Austrian Min- 
istry of Foreign Affairs. 

Count Mensdorff Ambassador to England. 

Count Szapary Ambassador to Russia. 



xxx The Witnesses 

ITALY 

HIS MAJESTY, KING VICTOR EMMANUEL III. 

Marquis di San Giuliano Minister of Foreign Affairs. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction ...... v 

Foreword ....... xv 

The Witnesses ...... xxvii 

CHAPTER I 
The Supreme Court of Civilization 

Existence of the Court — The conscience of mankind— The 
philosophy of Bernhardi — The recrudescence of Mach- 
iavellism — Treitschke and Bernhardi's doctrine — Re- 
cent utterances of the Kaiser, Crown Prince, and 
representative officials — George Bernard Shaw's de- 
fense — Concrete illustration of Bernhardiism . . I 

CHAPTER II 
The Record in the Case 

The issues stated — Proximate and underlying causes — A 
war of diplomats — The masses not parties to the war — 
The official defenses— The English White Paper— 
The German White Paper — The Russian Orange Paper 
— The Belgian Gray Paper — Austria and Italy still 
silent — Obligation of these nations to disclose facts . 18 

CHAPTER III 
The Suppressed Evidence 

No apparent suppression by England, Russia, and Belgium 
— Suppression by Germany of vital documents — 
Suppression by Austria of entire record — Significance 
of such suppression ...... 27 

xxxi 



xxxii Contents 

CHAPTER IV 

Germany's Responsibility for the Austrian 
Ultimatum 

PAGE 

Silence which preceded ultimatum — Europe's ignorance of 
impending developments — Duty to civilization- 
Germany's prior knowledge of ultimatum — Its dis- 
claimer to Russia, France, and England of any respon- 
sibility — Contradictory admission in its official defense 
—Further confirmation in Germany's simultaneous 
threat to the Powers — Further confirmation in its con- 
fidential notice to States of Germany to prepare for 
eventualities . .31 



CHAPTER V 
The Austrian Ultimatum to Servia 

Extreme brutality of ultimatum — Limited time given to 
Servia and Europe for consideration — Ultimatum and 
Servia's reply contrasted in parallel columns — Relative 
size of two nations — Germany's intimations to Servia — 
Brutality of ultimatum shown by analogy — Disclaimer 
of intention to take territory valueless ... 47 

CHAPTER VI 
The Peace Parleys 

Possibility of peace not embarrassed by popular clamor — 
Difficulties of peaceful solution not insuperable — 
Policy of Germany and Austria — Russia's and Eng- 
land's request for time — Germany's refusal to co- 
operate — Germany's and Austria's excuses for refusal 
to give extension of time — Berchtold's absence from 
Vienna — Austria's alleged disclaimer of territorial 
expansion — Sazonof's conference with English and 
French Ambassadors — Their conciliatory counsel to 



Contents xxxiii 



Servia— Servia's pacific reply to ultimatum — Austria, 
without considering Servian reply, declares war — 
England proposes suspension of hostilities for peace 
parleys — Germany refuses — Its specious reasons — 
Germany's untenable position as to localization of 
conflict — England's proposal for a conference— Ger- 
many's refusal — Austria declines all intervention, 
refusing to discuss Servian note — Germany supports 
her with a quibble as to name of conference — Russia 
proposes further discussion on basis of Servian note- 
Russia then again proposes European conference- 
Austria and Germany decline . . . . 6 1 



CHAPTER VII ' 
The Attitude of France 

The French Yellow Book — Its editors and contents — 
M. Jules Cambon — The weakness of German dip- 
lomacy — Cambon's experience and merits — Interview 
between the German Kaiser and the King of Belgium 
— The Kaiser's change of attitude — The influence of 
the Moroccan crisis — The condition of the German 
people in 191 3 — The suppression of news in Austria — 
Attitude of the military party — Servia's warning to 
Austria — Germany's knowledge of the Austrian ulti- 
matum before its issuance — Italy's ignorance of the 
Austrian ultimatum — Significance of the fact — Ger- 
many's reasons for concealing its intentions from Italy 
— The policy of secrecy — Prince Lichnowsky's anxiety 
— Cambon's interview with von Jagow — The methods 
of deception — Sazonof's frank offer — Germany's at- 
tempt to influence France — Cambon's dramatic in- 
terview with von Jagow — His plea " In the name of 
humanity " — The different attitudes of the two groups 
of powers . . . . . . . .102 



xxxiv Contents 

CHAPTER VIII 
The Intervention of the Kaiser 

PAGE 

The Kaiser's return to Berlin — His inconsistent record and 
complex personality — German Foreign Office depre- 
cates his return — Its many blunders — The Kaiser takes 
the helm— He telegraphs the Czar — The Czar's reply — 
The Kaiser's second telegram — His untenable position 
— The Czar's explanation of military preparations and 
pledge that no provocative action would be taken by 
Russia — King George's telegram proposing temporary 
occupation by Austria of Belgrade pending further peace 
negotiations — The Kaiser's reply — The Kaiser's tele- 
gram to the Czar demanding Russian discontinuance of 
military preparations — His insistence upon unilateral 
conditions — Germany's preparations for war — Its offer 
to England to insure its neutrality — England's reply — 
Russia's offer to stop conditionally military prepara- 
tions — England requests Germany to suggest any peace 
formula — Austria expresses willingness to discuss with 
Russia Servian note — Motives of Austria for this re- 
versal of policy — The Kaiser sends ultimatum to Russia 
— The Czar's last appeal — The Kaiser's reply — 
Russia's inability to recall mobilization — England's 
last efforts for peace — Germany declares war — The 
Czar's telegram to King George .... 138 

CHAPTER IX 
The Case of Belgium 

The verdict of history not affected by result of war- 
Belgium at outbreak of war — The Treaty of 1839— 
Its affirmation by Bismarck — France's action in 1871 — 
Reaffirmation by Germany of Belgian neutrality in 
1911-1914 — The Hague Peace Conference of 1907— 
England asks Germany's and France's intentions with 
respect to Belgium's neutrality — France replies — 
Germany's refusal to reply — Germany's second offer to 
England — Germany's ultimatum to Belgium — Bel- 



Contents xxxv 



gium's reply — France's offer of five army corps — 
Belgium refuses aid — Germany's declaration of war 
against Belgium — The German Chancellor's explana- 
tion in the Reichstag — The Belgian King appeals to 
England — England's ultimatum to Germany — The 
"scrap of paper" incident — England declares war 
against Germany — The apologies for Germany's action 
discussed — Belgium's rights independent of Treaty of 
1839 or The Hague Convention — Germany's allegation 
that France had violated Belgium's neutrality an 
afterthought — Von Mach's plea for the suspension of 
judgment — The Brussels documents discussed — The 
negotiations between England and Belgium — The Ger- 
man Chancellor's belated explanation of the " Scrap 
of paper" phrase — Invasion of Belgium a recrudes- 
cence of Machiavellism — The great blunder of Ger- 
many's diplomats and soldiers . . . .190 

CHAPTER X 
The Judgment of the World 

The completeness of the evidence — The force of public 
opinion — The judgment of neutral States — The United 
States as a moral arbiter — A summary of the probable 
verdict of history . ...... 240 



Epilogue ...... 246 



The Evidence in the Case 



CHAPTER I 

THE SUPREME COURT OF CIVILIZATION 

Let us suppose that in this year of dis-Grace, 
1914, there had existed, as let us pray will one day 
exist, a Supreme Court of Civilization, before 
which the sovereign nations could litigate their 
differences without resort to the iniquitous arbi- 
trament of arms and that each of the contend- 
ing nations had a sufficient leaven of Christianity 
or shall we say common-place, every-day morality, 
to have its grievances adjudged not by the ethics 
of the cannon, but by the eternal criterion of 
justice. 

What would be the judgment of that august 
tribunal? 

It may be suggested that the question is aca- 
demic, as no such Supreme Court exists or is likely 
to exist within the life of any living man. 



2 The Evidence in the Case 

Casuists of the Bernhardi school of moral phil- 
osophy will further suggest that to discuss the 
ethical merits of the war is to start with a false 
premise that such a thing as international mor- 
ality exists, and that when once the conven- 
tionalities of civilization are laid aside the 
leading nations commence and make war in a 
manner that differs only in degree and not in kind 
from the methods of Frederick the Great and 
Napoleon, and that these in turn only differed in 
degree from those of Alaric and Attila. According 
to this theory, the only law of nations is that 
ascribed by the poet to Rob Roy : 

"The good old rule 
Sufficeth them, the simple plan 
That they should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can." 

Does the Twentieth Century only differ from its 
predecessors in having a thin veneering of hypoc- 
risy, or has there developed in the progress of civil- 
ization an international morality, by which, even 
though imperfectly, the moral conduct of nations 
is judged? 

The answer can be an unqualified affirmative. 
With the age of the printing press, the steamship, 
the railroad, and the telegraph there has developed 
a conscience of mankind. 



The Supreme Court of Civilization 3 

When the founders of the American Republic 
severed the tie which bound them to Great Britain, 
they stated that " a decent respect to the opinions 
of mankind requires that they should declare the 
causes which impel them to the separation." 

The Declaration assumed that there was a 
rule of right and wrong that regulated the inter- 
course of nations as well as individuals; it be- 
lieved that there was a great human conscience, 
which rises higher than the selfish interests and 
prejudices of nations and races, and which approves 
justice and condemns injustice. It felt that this 
approval is more to be desired than national ad- 
vantage. It constituted mankind a judge between 
contending nations and lest its judgment should 
temporarily err it established posterity as a court 
of last resort. It placed the tie of humanity 
above that of nationality. It proclaimed the 
solidarity of mankind. 

In the years that have intervened since this 
noble Declaration, the world has so far progressed 
towards an enlightened sense of justice that a 
" decent respect to the opinions of mankind" has 
proved an efficient power in regulating peacefully 
and justly the intercourse of nations. Each nation 
does at least in some measure fear to-day the 
disapproval of civilization. The time gives this 



4 The Evidence in the Case 

proof in the eager desire of Germany to-day— 
despite its policy of "blood and iron"- — to gain 
the sympathetic approval of the American peo- 
ple, not with the remotest hope of any practical 
cooperation but to avoid that state of moral iso- 
lation, in which the land of Luther now finds itself. 

The Supreme Court of Civilization does exist. 
It consists of cosmopolitan men in every country, 
who put aside racial and national prejudices and 
determine the right and wrong of every issue 
between nations by that slowly forming system 
of international morality which is the conscience 
of mankind. 

To a certain class of German statesmen and 
philosophers this Court of Public Opinion is a 
visionary abstraction. A group of distinguished 
German soldiers, professors, statesmen, and even 
doctors of divinity, pretending to speak in behalf 
of the German nation, have consciously or un- 
consciously attempted to revive in the twentieth 
century the cynical political morality of the 
sixteenth. 

As Symonds, the historian of the Renaissance, 
says in his Age of the Despots, Machiavelli was the 
first in modern times to formulate a theory of 
government in which the interests of the ruler 
are alone regarded, which assumes 



The Supreme Court of Civilization 5 

a separation between statecraft and morality, 
which recognizes force and fraud among the legiti- 
mate means of attaining high political ends, which 
makes success alone the test of conduct and which 
presupposes the corruption, baseness, and venality 
of mankind at large. 

Even the age of Cesare Borgia revolted against 
this philosophy and the name of Machiavelli 
became a byword. "Am I a Machiavel?" says 
the host in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and 
the implication of this question indirectly mani- 
fests the revolt of the seventeenth century against 
the sinister philosophy of the great Florentine. 

Nothing can be more amazing than that not 
only leading militarists of Germany but many of its 
foremost philosophers and teachers have become so 
intoxicated with the dream of Pan-Germanism 
that in the utmost sincerity they have espoused 
and with a certain pride proclaimed the vicious 
principles of Machiavelli in all their moral nudity. 
There is an emotional and mystical element in 
the advanced German thinker, which makes him 
capable of accepting in full sincerity intellectual 
and moral absurdities of which the more robust 
common sense of other nations would be incapable. 
The advanced German doctrinaire is the "wisest 
fool in Christendom." The depth of his learning 



6 The Evidence in the Case 

is generally in the inverse ratio to the shallowness 
of his common sense. 

Nothing better demonstrates this than the 
present negation by advanced and doubtless sin- 
cere German thinkers of the very foundations of 
public morality and indeed of civilization. They 
have been led with Nietzsche to revile the Beati- 
tudes and exalt the supremacy of cruelty over 
mercy. Indeed Treitschke in his lectures on 
Politik, which have become the gospel of Junker- 
dom, avowedly based his gospel of force upon the 
teaching of Machiavelli, for he points out that 
it was Machiavelli who first clearly saw that the 
State is power (der Staat ist Macht). Therefore 
"to care for this power is the highest moral duty 
of the State" and "of all political weaknesses that 
of feebleness is the most abominable and despicable ; 
it is the sin against the holy spirit of politics." 
He therefore holds that the State as the ultimate 
good "cannot bind its will for the future over 
against other States," and that international 
treaties are therefore only obligatory "for such 
time as the State may find to be convenient." 

To enforce the will of the nation contrary to its 
own solemn promises and to increase its might, 
war is the appointed means. Both Treitschke and 
Moltke conceived it as "an ordinance set by God" 



The Supreme Court of Civilization 7 

and "one of the two highest functions" of the 
State. The doctrine is carried to the blasphemous 
conclusion that war is an ordinance of a just and 
merciful God; that, to quote Bernhardi, "it is a 
biological necessity" and that "the living God will 
see to it that war shall always recur as a terrible 
medicine for humanity." Therefore "might is at 
once the supreme right and the dispute as to what 
is right is decided by the arbitrament of war," 
which gives a "biologically just decision." 

This means that the 42 centimeter howitzer is 
more moral than a gun of smaller caliber and that 
the justice of God depends upon the superiority 
of Krupp to other ordnance manufacturers. 

Treitschke tells us, and the statement is quoted 
by Bernhardi with approval, that "the end all 
and be all of a state is power, and he who is 
not man enough to look this truth in the face 
should not meddle with politics." To this 
Bernhardi adds that the State's highest moral duty 
is to increase its power and in so doing "the State 
is the sole judge of the morality of its own action. 
It is in fact above morality or, in other words 
whatever is necessary is moral.' 11 

Again we learn that the State must not allow 
any conventional sympathies to distract it from 
its object and that "conditions may arise which 



8 The Evidence in the Case 

are more powerful than the most honorable 
intentions." 

All efforts directed towards the abolition of war 
are denominated as not only "foolish but ab- 
solutely immoral." To indicate that in this 
prosecution of war for the increase of dominion, 
chivalry would be a weakness and magnanimity a 
crime, we are finally told that "the State is a law 
unto itself" and that "weak nations have not the 
same right to live as powerful and vigorous 
nations. ' ' Even as to weak nations, we are further 
advised that the powerful and vigorous nation — 
which alone apparently has the right to live- 
must not wait for some act of aggression or legiti- 
mate casus belli, but that it is justified in de- 
liberately provoking a war, and that the happiest 
results have always followed such "deliberately 
provoked wars," for "the prospects of success are 
the greatest when the moment for declaring war 
can be selected to suit the political and military 
situation." 

As the weak nations have no moral right to live 
it becomes important to remember that in the 
economy of Prussian Junkerdom there is only one 
strong race — his own. " Wir sind die Weltrasse." 
The ultimate goal is the super-nation, and the 
premise upon which the whole policy is based is 



The Supreme Court of Civilization 9 

that Germany is predestined to be that super- 
nation. Bernhardi believes — and his belief is but 
the reflex of the oft-repeated boast of the Kaiser — 
that history presents no other possibility. " For 
us there are two alternatives and no third — ■ 
world power or ruin" {Weltmacht oder Nieder- 
gang). To assimilate Germany to ancient Rome 
the Kaiser on occasion reminds himself of Caesar 
and affects to reign, not by the will of the people, 
but by divine right. No living monarch has said 
or done more to revive this mediaeval fetich. To 
his soldiers he has recently said : 1 1 You think each 
day of your Emperor. Do not forget God." 
What magnanimity! 

At the outbreak of the present war he again 
illustrated his spirit of fanatical absolutism, 
which at times inspires him, by saying to his 
army: 

Remember that the German people are the chosen 
of God. On me, as German Emperor, the spirit 
of God has descended. I am His weapon; His 
sword; His Vicegerent. Woe to the disobedient! 
Death to cowards and unbelievers ! 

The modern world has had nothing like this 
since Mahomet and, accepted literally, it claims 
for the Kaiser the divine attributes attributed to 
the Caesars. Even the Caesars, in baser and more 



io The Evidence in the Case 

primitive times, found posing as a divine superman 
somewhat difficult and disconcerting. Shakespeare 
subtly suggests this when he makes his Caesar talk 
like a god and act with the vacillation of a child. 

When the war was precipitated as the natural 
result of such abhorrent teachings, the world at 
large knew little either of Treitschke or Bernhardi. 
Thoughtful men of other nations did know that 
the successful political immoralities of Frederick the 
Great had profoundly affected the policies of the 
Prussian Court to this day. The German poet, 
Freiligrath, once said that " Germany is Ham- 
let," but no analogy is less justified. There is 
nothing in the supersensitive, introspective, and 
amiable dreamer of Elsinore to suggest the Prussia 
of to-day, which B ebel has called ' ' Siegesbetrunken. ' ' 
(Victory- drunk . ) 

Since the beginning of the present war, the world 
has become familiar with these abhorrent teachings 
and as a result of a general revolt against this 
recrudescence of Borgiaism attempts have been 
made by the apologists for Prussia, especially in 
the United States, to suggest that neither Treitsch- 
ke nor Bernhardi fairly reflect the political 
philosophy of official Germany. Treitschke's in- 
fluence as an historian and lecturer could not well 
be denied but attempts have been made to im- 



The Supreme Court of Civilization n 

press America that Bernhardi has no standing 
to speak for his country and that the importance 
of his teachings should therefore be minimized. 

Apart from the wide popularity of Bernhardi' s 
writings in Germany, the German Government 
has never repudiated Bernhardi's conclusions or 
disclaimed responsibility therefor. While pos- 
sibly not an officially authorized spokesman, yet 
he is as truly a representative thinker in the 
German military system as Admiral Mahan was 
in the Navy of the United States. Of the 
acceptance by Prussia of Bernhardt s teachings 
there is one irrefutable proof. It is Belgium. The 
destruction of that unoffending country is the full 
harvest of this twentieth-century Machiavelliism. 

A few recent utterances from a representative 
physician, a prominent journalist, and a distin- 
guished retired officer of the German Army may 
be quoted as showing how completely infatuated a 
certain class of German thinkers has become with 
the gospel of force for the purpose of attaining 
world power. 

Thus a Dr. Fuchs, in a book on the subject of 
preparedness for war, says: 

Therefore the German claim of the day must be : 
The family to the front. The State has to follow 
at first in the school, then in foreign politics. Edu- 



12 The Evidence in the Case 

cation to hate. Education to the estimation of hatred. 
Organization of hatred. Education to the desire for 
hatred. Let us abolish unripe and false shame 
before brutality and fanaticism. We must not hesi- 
tate to announce: To us is given faith, hope, and 
hatred, but hatred is the greatest among them. 

Maximilian Harden, one of the most influential 
German journalists, says: 

Let us drop our miserable attempts to excuse 
Germany's action. Not against our will and as a 
nation taken by surprise did we hurl ourselves into 
this gigantic venture. We willed it. We had to 
will it. We do not stand before the judgment seat 
of Europe. We acknowledge no such jurisdiction. 
Our might shall create a new law in Europe. It is 
Germany that strikes. When she has conquered 
new domains for her genius then the priesthoods 
of all the gods will praise the God of War. 

Still more striking and morally repellent was the 
very recent statement by Major-General von Dis- 
furth, in an article contributed by him to the 
Hamburger Nachrichten, which so completely illus- 
trates Bernhardiism in its last extreme of avowed 
brutality that it justifies quotation in extenso. 

No object whatever is served by taking any notice 
of the accusations of barbarity leveled against 
Germany by our foreign critics. Frankly, we are 
and must be barbarians, if by these we understand 



The Supreme Court of Civilization 13 

those who wage war relentlessly and to the uttermost 
degree. . . , . 

We owe no explanations to any one. There is 
nothing for us to justify and nothing to explain away. 
Every act of whatever nature committed by our troops 
for the purpose of discouraging, defeating, and destroy- 
ing our enemies is a brave act and a good deed, and is 
fully justified. . . . Germany stands as the supreme 
arbiter of her own methods, which in the time of war 
must be dictated to the world. . . . 

They call us barbarians. What of it? We scorn 
them and their abuse. For my part I hope that in 
this war we have merited the title of barbarians. Let 
neutral peoples and our enemies cease their empty 
chatter, which may well be compared to the twitter 
of birds. Let them cease their talk of the Cathedral 
at Rheims and of all the churches and all the castles 
in France which have shared its fate. These 
things do not interest us. Our troops must achieve 
victory. What else matters? 

These hysterical vaporings of advanced Junkers 
no more make a case against the German people 
than the tailors of Tooley Street had authority to 
speak for England, but they do represent the 
spirit of the ruling caste, to which unhappily the 
German people have committed their destiny. 
It would not be difficult to quote both the Kai- 
ser and the Crown Prince, who on more than 
one occasion have manifested their enthusiastic 
adherence to the gospel of brute force. The world 



14 The Evidence in the Case 

is not likely to forget the Crown Prince's congratu- 
lations to the brutal military martinet of the 
Zabern incident, and still less the shameful fact 
that when the Kaiser sent his punitive expedition 
to China, he who once stood within sight of 
the Mount of Olives and preached a sermon 
breathing the spirit of Christian humility, said to 
his soldiers: 

When you encounter the enemy you will de- 
feat him. No quarter shall be given, no prisoners 
shall be taken. Let all who fall into your hands be 
at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thousand years 
ago under the leadership of Etzel (Attila), gained a 
reputation in virtue of which they still live in historical 
tradition, so may the name of Germany become known 
in such a manner in China that no Chinaman will 
ever again even dare to look askance at a German. 

And this campaign of extermination — worthy 
of a savage Indian chief — was planned for the 
most pacific and unaggressive race, the Chinese, 
for it is sadly true that the one nation which 
has more than any other been inspired for two 
thousand years by the spirit of "peace on 
earth" is the hermit nation, into which until the 
nineteenth century the light of Christianity never 
shone. 

In a recent article, George Bernhard Shaw, 
the Voltaire of the twentieth century, with the 



The Supreme Court of Civilization 15 

intellectual brilliancy and moral shallowness of 
the great cynic, attempts to justify Bernhardiism 
by resort to the unconvincing " et tu quoque" 
argument. He contends that England also has 
had its " Bernhardis, " and refers to a few books 
which he affects to think bear out his argument. 
That these books show that there have been ad- 
vocates of militarism in England is undoubtedly 
true. The present war illustrates that there was 
need of such literature, for a nation which faced so 
great a trial as the present, with a standing army 
that was pitiful in comparison with that of Ger- 
many and without any involuntary service law, 
certainly had need of some literary stimulus to 
self -preparation. No one quarrels with Bernhardi 
in his discussions of the problems of war as such. 
It is only when the soldier ceases to be a strategist 
and becomes a moralist that the average man with 
conventional ideas of morality revolts against Bern- 
hardiism. The books to which Mr. Shaw refers can 
be searched in vain for any passages parallel to 
those which have been quoted from Treitschke, 
Bernhardi, and other German writers. The bril- 
liant but erratic George Bernard Shaw cannot find 
in all English literature any such Machiavelliisms 
as those of Treitschke and Bernhardi. 

Shaw's whole defense of Germany, betrays his 



16 The Evidence in the Case 

characteristic desire to be clever and audacious 
without regard to nice considerations of truth. 
Much as we may admire his intellectual badinage 
under other circumstances, it may be questioned 
whether in this supreme tragedy of the world it 
was fitting for Shaw to daub himself anew with his 
familiar vermilion and play the intellectual clown. 

It was either courage of an extraordinary but 
unenviable character or else crass stupidity that 
led Bernhardi to submit to the civilization of 
the present day such a debasing gospel, for if his 
brain had not been hopelessly obfuscated by his 
Pan-Germanic imperialism, he would have seen 
that not only would this philosophy do his country 
infinitely more harm than a whole park of artillery 
but would inevitably carry his memory down to 
a wondering posterity, like Machiavelli, detestable 
but, unlike Machiavelli, ridiculous. 

Machiavelli gave to his Prince a literary finish 
that placed his treatise among the classics, while 
Bernhardi has gained recognition chiefly because 
his book is a moral anachronism. 

One concrete illustration from Bernhardi clearly 
shows that the sentences above quoted are 
truly representative of his philosophy, and not 
unfair excerpts. In explaining that it is the duty 
of every nation to increase its power and territory 



The Supreme Court of Civilization 17 

without regard for the rights of others, he alludes 
to the fact that England committed the "unpar- 
donable blunder from her point of view of not 
supporting the Southern States in the American 
War of Secession, " and thus forever severing in 
twain the American Republic. In this striking 
illustration of applied Bernhardiism, there is no 
suggestion as to the moral side of such interven- 
tion. Nothing is said with respect to the moral 
question of slavery, or of the obligations of 
England to a friendly Power. Nothing as to 
how the best hopes of humanity would have 
been shattered if the American Republic — that 
"pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night " 
to struggling humanity — had been brought to 
cureless ruin. All these considerations are com- 
pletely disregarded, and all Bernhardi can see in 
the situation, as it presented itself to England 
in 1 86 1, was its opportunity, by a cowardly stab 
in the back, to remove forever from its path a great 
and growing nation. 

Poor Bernhardi ! He thought to serve his royal 
master. He has simply damned him. As Mach- 
iavelli, as the eulogist of the Medicis, simply em- 
phasized their moral nudity, so Bernhardi has 
shown the world the inner significance of this 
crude revival of Caesarism. 



CHAPTER II 

THE RECORD IN THE CASE 

All morally sane men in this twentieth century 
are agreed that war abstractly is an evil thing, — 
perhaps the greatest of all indecencies, — and that 
while it may be one of the offenses which must 
come, "woe to that man (or nation) by whom the 
offense cometh!" 

They are of one mind in regarding this present 
war as a great crime — perhaps the greatest crime — 
against civilization, and the only questions which 
invite discussion are : 

Which of the two contending groups of Powers 
is morally responsible? 

Was Austria justified in declaring war against 
Servia? 

Was Germany justified in declaring war against 
Russia and France? 

Was Germany justified in declaring war against 
Belgium? 

Was England justified in declaring war against 
Germany? 

18 



The Record in the Case 19 

Primarily and perhaps exclusively these ethical 
questions turn upon the issues developed by the 
communications which passed between the various 
chancelleries of Europe in the last week of July, 
for it is the amazing feature of this greatest of wars 
that it was precipitated by the ruling classes 
and, assuming that all the diplomats sincerely 
desired a peaceful solution of the questions raised 
by the Austrian ultimatum (which is by no 
means clear) the war is the result of ineffective 
diplomacy. 

I quite appreciate the distinction between the 
immediate causes of a war and the anterior or 
underlying causes. The fundamental cause of the 
Franco-German War of 1870 was not the incident 
at Ems nor even the question of the Spanish 
succession. These were but the precipitating 
pretexts or, as a lawyer would express it, the 
" proximate causes." The underlying cause was 
unquestionably the rivalry between Prussia and 
France for political supremacy in Europe. 

Behind the Austrian ultimatum to Servia were 
also great questions of State policy, not easily 
determinable upon any tangible ethical principle, 
and which involved the hegemony of Europe. 
Germany's domination of Europe had been es- 
tablished when by the rattling of its saber it 



20 The Evidence in the Case 

compelled Russia in 1908 to permit Austria to 
disturb the then existing status in the Balkans by 
the forcible annexation of Bosnia and Herze- 
govina, and behind the Austrian-Servian question 
of 1 9 14, arising out of the murder of the Crown 
Prince of Austria at Serajevo, was the determina- 
tion of Germany and Austria to reassert that 
dominant position by compelling Russia to submit 
to a further humiliation of a Slav State. 

The present problem is to inquire how far Ger- 
many and her ally selected a just pretext to test 
this question of mastery. 

The pretext was the work of diplomatists. It 
was not the case of a nation rising upon some great 
cause which appealed to popular imagination. 
The acts of the statesmen in that last fateful 
week of July, 19 14, were not the mere echo of the 
popular will. 

The issues were framed by the statesmen and 
diplomats of Europe and whatever efforts were 
made to preserve the peace and whatever ob- 
structive tactics were interposed were not the 
acts of any of the nations now in arms but those 
of a small coterie of men who, in the secrecy 
of their respective cabinet?, made their moves and 
countermoves upon the chessboard of nations. 

The future of Europe in that last week of July 



The Record in the Case 21 

was in the hands of a small group of men, number- 
ing not over fifty, and what they did was never 
known to their respective nations in any detail 
until after the fell Rubicon had been crossed and a 
world war had been precipitated. 

If all of these men had sincerely desired to work 
for peace, there would not have been any war. 

So swiftly did events move that the masses of the 
people had time neither to think nor to act. The 
suddenness of the crisis marks it as a species of 
"midsummer madness," a very " witches' sab- 
bath" of diplomatic demagoguery. 

In a peaceful summer, when the nations now 
struggling to exterminate each other were fraterniz- 
ing in the holiday centers of Europe, an issue was 
suddenly precipitated, made the subject of com- 
munications between the various chancelleries, and 
almost in the twinkling of an eye Europe found 
itself wrapped in a universal flame. The appall- 
ing toll of death suggests the inquiry of Hamlet: 
" Did these bones cost no more o' the breeding, but 
to play at loggats with "em?" and if the di- 
plomatic "loggats" of 1 9 14 were ineffectively 
played, some one must accept the responsibility 
for such failure. 

This sense of responsibility against the dread 
Day of Accounting has resulted in a disposition 



22 The Evidence in the Case 

beyond past experience to justify the quarrel 
by placing before the world the diplomatic 
record. 

The English Government commenced shortly 
after the outbreak of hostilities by publishing the 
so-called White Paper, consisting of a statement 
by the British Government and 160 diplomatic 
documents as an appendix. This was preceded 
by Sir Edward Grey's masterly speech in Parli- 
ament. That speech and all his actions in this 
fateful crisis may rank him in future history with 
the younger Pitt. 

On August 4th, the German Chancellor for the 
first time explained to the representatives of his 
nation assembled in the Reichstag the causes of 
the war, then already commenced, and there was 
distributed among the members a statement of 
the German Foreign Office, accompanied by 
27 Exhibits in the form of diplomatic com- 
munications, which have been erroneously called 
the German White Paper and which sets forth 
Germany's defense to the world. 

Shortly thereafter Russia, casting aside all the 
traditional secrecy of Muscovite diplomacy, sub- 
mitted to a candid world its acts and deeds in the 
form of the so-called Russian Orange Paper, with 
79 appended documents, and this was followed 



The Record in the Case 23 

later by the publication by Belgium of the so- 
called Belgian Gray Paper. 

Late in November France published its Yellow 
Book, the most comprehensive of these diplomatic 
records. Of the two groups of powers, therefore, only 
Austria and Italy have failed to disclose their dip- 
lomatic correspondence to the scrutiny of the world. 

The former, as the originator of the controversy, 
should give as a matter of "decent respect to the 
opinions of mankind" its justification, if any, for 
what it did. So far, it has only given its ultimatum 
to Servia and Servia's reply. 

Italy, as a nation that has elected to remain 
neutral, is not under the same moral obligation to 
disclose the secrets of its Foreign Office, and while 
it remains on friendly terms with all the Powers it 
probably feels some delicacy in disclosing con- 
fidential communications, but as the whole world 
is vitally interested in determining the justice of 
the quarrel and as it is wholly probable that the 
archives of the Italian Foreign Office would throw 
an illuminating searchlight upon the moral issues 
involved, Italy, in a spirit of loyalty to civilization, 
should without further delay disclose the documen- 
tary evidence in its possession. 

While it is to be regretted that the full diplomatic 
record is not yet made up, yet as we have the most 



24 The Evidence in the Case 

substantial part of the record in the communica- 
tions which passed in those fateful days between 
Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, and London, there is 
sufficient before the court to justify a judgment, 
especially as there is reason to believe that the 
documents as yet withheld would only confirm 
the conclusions which the record already given 
to the world irresistibly suggests. 

Thus we can reasonably assume that the Italian 
documentary evidence would fairly justify the 
conclusion that the war was on the part of Ger- 
many and Austria a war of aggression, for Italy, 
by its refusal to act with its associates of the Tri- 
ple Alliance, has in the most significant manner 
thus adjudged it. 

Under the terms of the Triple Alliance, Italy had 
obligated itself to support Germany and Austria 
in any purely defensive war, and if therefore the 
communications, which undoubtedly passed be- 
tween Vienna and Berlin on the one hand, and 
Rome on the other, justified the conclusion that 
Germany and Austria had been assailed by Russia, 
England, and France or either of them, then we 
must assume that Italy would have respected its 
obligation, especially as it would thus relieve Italy 
from any possible charge of treachery to two al- 
lies, whose support and protection it had enjoyed 



The Record in the Case 25 

from the time that the Triple Alliance was first 
made. 

When Italy decided that it was under no ob- 
ligation to support its allies, it effectually af- 
firmed the fact that they had commenced a war 
of aggression, and until the contrary is shown, we 
must therefore assume that the archives of the 
Foreign Office at Rome would merely confirm 
the conclusions hereinafter set forth as to the 
moral responsibility for the war. 

Similarly upon considerations that are familiar 
to all who have had any experience in the judicial 
investigation of truth, it must be assumed that 
if Austria had in its secret archives any docu- 
mentary evidence that would justify it in its 
pretension that it had been unjustly assailed by one 
or more of the Powers with which it is now at war, 
it would have published such documents to the 
world in its own exculpation. The moral respon- 
sibility for this war is too great for any nation 
to accept it unnecessarily. Least of all could 
Austria — which on the face of the record com- 
menced the controversy by its ultimatum to 
Servia — leave anything undone to acquit itself 
at the bar of public opinion of any responsibility 
for the great crime that is now drenching Europe 
with blood. The time is past when any nation 



26 The Evidence in the Case 

can ignore the opinions of mankind or needlessly 
outrage its conscience. Germany has recognized 
this in publishing its defense and exhibiting a part 
of its documentary proof, and if its ally, Austria, 
continues to withhold from the knowledge of the 
world the documents in its possession, there can 
be but one conclusion as to its guilt. 

Upon the record as thus made up in the Supreme 
Court of Civilization, that tribunal need no more 
hesitate to proceed to judgment than would an or- 
dinary court hesitate to enter a decree because one 
of the litigants has deliberately suppressed docu- 
ments known to be in its possession. It does not 
lie in the mouth of such a litigant to ask the court 
to suspend judgment or withhold its sentence until 
the full record is made up, when the incompleteness 
of that record is due to its own deliberate sup- 
pression of vital documentary proofs. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SUPPRESSED EVIDENCE 

The official defenses of England, Russia, France, 
and Belgium do not apparently show any failure on 
the part of either to submit any essential diplo- 
matic document in their possession. They have 
respectively made certain contentions as to the 
proposals that they made to maintain the peace of 
the world, and in every instance have supported 
these contentions by putting into evidence the 
letters and communications in which such proposals 
were expressed. 

When the German White Paper is exam- 
ined it discloses on its very face the suppres- 
sion of documents of vital importance. The 
fact that communications passed between Ber- 
lin and Vienna, the text of which has never been 
disclosed, is not a matter of conjecture. Germany 
asserts as part of its defense that it faithfully ex- 
ercised its mediatory influence on Austria, but 
not only is such influence not disclosed by any 
practical results, such as we would expect in 

27 



28 The Evidence in the Case 

view of her dominating relations with Austria, 
but the text of these vital communications is still 
kept in the secret archives of Berlin and Vienna. 
Germany has carefully selected a part of her dip- 
lomatic records for publication but withheld others. 
Austria has withheld all. 

Thus in the official apology for Germany it is 
stated that, in spite of the refusal of Austria to 
accept the proposition of Sir Edward Grey to treat 
the Servian reply "as a basis for further conversa- 
tions," 

we [Germany] continued our mediatory efforts 
to the utmost and advised Vienna to make any 
possible compromise consistent with the dignity 
of the Monarchy. 1 

This would be more convincing if the German 
Foreign Office had added the text of the advice 
which it thus gave Vienna. 

A like significant omission will be found when 
the same official defense states that on July 29th 
the German Government advised Austria "to 
begin the conversations with Mr. Sazonof. " But 
here again the text is not found among the docu- 
ments which the German Foreign Office has given 
to the world. The communications, which passed 

1 German White Paper. 



The Suppressed Evidence 29 

een th fcs ambassadors in 

Petersburg, Paris, and London, are given in 
extenso, but among the twenty-seven conunur.:. 
tions appended to the German White Pap. 

signified rti that not . m ii 

wh - h passed from the Foreign Of. \ 
id onl_ two whic 
pas :sador in V 

nceUor. While the Kaiser has fa- 
vored the world with his messages to the Czar 
George, he has wholly failed to gi ve us 
that he rent in those critical days t : 
tn Emperor or the King of Italy. We 
shall have occasion to refer hereafter tc the fre- 
querr: failure tc produce locuments, the existence 
::' which is admitted by :he exhibits which Ger- 
many appended to its White Paper. 

This cannot be an accident. The German For- 
eign Office has seeniit tc throw the veil :: secrecy 
the text :: its communicatiir.s to Vienna, al- 
though professing t: give the purport of " a few :: 
them. The purr;:se :: this suppression is even 
more clearly indicate:: by the complete failure :: 
Austria tc submit any :: its diplomatic records tc 
the scrutiny :: a candid world. Until Germany 
and Austria are willing to put the most im- 
portant documents in :heir possession in evidence, 



30 The Evidence in the Case 

they must not be surprised that the World, re- 
membering Bismarck's garbling of the Ems dis- 
patch, which precipitated the Franco-Prussian War, 
will be incredulous as to the sincerity of their pacific 
protestations. 



ADDENDUM TO CHAPTER III 

The Austrian Red Book, published more than six months after 
the declaration of war, simply emphasizes the policy of suppres- 
sion of vital documents, which we have already discussed. Of 
its 69 documentary exhibits, there is not one which passed directly 
between the Cabinets of Berlin and Vienna. The text of the com- 
munications, in which Germany claims to have exercised a 
mediatory and conciliatory influence with its ally, is still withheld. 
Not a single document is produced which was sent between July the 
6th and July the 21st, the period when the great coup was secretly 
planned by Berlin and Vienna. 

In the Red Book we find eight communications from Count 
Berchtold to the Austrian Ambassador at Berlin and four replies 
from that official, but not a letter or telegram passing between 
Berchtold and von Bethmann-Hollweg or between the German 
and Austrian Kaisers. The Austrian Red Book gives additional 
evidence that at the eleventh hour, and shortly before Germany 
issued its ultimatum to Russia, Austria did finally agree to discuss 
the Servian question with Russia; but the information, which 
Germany presumably gave to its ally of its intention to send the 
ultimatum to Russia, is carefully withheld. Notwithstanding this 
suppression of vital documents, the diplomatic papers of Germany 
and Austria, now partially given to the world, disclose an un- 
mistakable purpose, amounting to an open confession, that they 
intended to force their will upon Europe, even though this course 
involved the most stupendous war in the history of mankind. 

March 1, 1915. 



CHAPTER IV 

Germany's responsibility for the Austrian 
ultimatum 

On June 28, 1914, the Austrian Crown Prince 
was murdered at Serajevo. For nearly a month 
thereafter there was no public statement by Aus- 
tria of its intentions, with the exception of a few 
semi-inspired dispatches to the effect that it would 
act with the greatest moderation and self-restraint. 
A careful examination made of the files of two 
leading American newspapers, each having a sep- 
arate news service, from June 28, 1914^0 July 23, 
19 14, has failed to disclose a single dispatch from 
Vienna which gave any intimation as to the drastic 
action which Austria was about to take. 

The French Premier, Viviani, in his speech to 
the French Senate, and House of Deputies, on 
August 4, 19 14, after referring to the fact that 
France, Russia, and Great Britain had cooperated 
in advising Servia to make any reasonable con- 
cession to Austria, added : 

3* 



32 The Evidence in the Case 

This advice was all the more valuable in view of 
the fact that Austria- Hungary's demands had been 
inadequately foreshadowed to the governments 
of the Triple Entente, to whom during the three 
preceding weeks the Austro-Hungarian Government 
had repeatedly given assurance that its demands 
would be extremely moderate. 

The movements of the leading statesmen and 
rulers of the Triple Entente clearly show that they, 
as well as the rest of the world, had been lulled into 
false security either by the silence of Austria, or, 
as Viviani avers, by its deliberate suggestion that 
its treatment of the Serajevo incident would be 
conciliatory, pacific, and moderate. 

Thus, on July 20th, the Russian Ambassador, 
obviously anticipating no crisis, left Vienna on a 
fortnight's leave of absence. The President of the 
French Republic and its Premier were far distant 
from Paris. Pachitch, the Servian Premier, was 
absent from Belgrade, when the ultimatum was 
issued. 

The testimony of the British Ambassador to 
Vienna is to the same effect. He reports to Sir 
Edward Grey: 

The delivery at Belgrade on the 23d of July of 
the note to Servia was preceded by a period of 
absolute silence at the Ballplatz. 



Germany and the Austrian Ultimatum 33 

He proceeds to say that with the exception of the 
German Ambassador at Vienna (note the signifi- 
cance of the exception) not a single member of the 
Diplomatic Corps knew anything of the Austrian 
ultimatum and that the French Ambassador, when 
he visited the Austrian Foreign Office on July 23d 
(the day of its issuance), was not only kept in 
ignorance that the ultimatum had actually been 
issued, but was given the impression that its 
tone would be moderate. Even the Italian Am- 
bassador was not taken into Count Berchtold's 
confidence. * 

The Servian Government had formally dis- 
claimed any responsibility for the assassination and 
had pledged itself to punish any Servian citizen 
implicated therein. No word came from Vienna 
excepting the semi-official intimations as to its 
moderate and conciliatory course, and after the 
funeral of the Archduke, the world, then en- 
joying its summer holiday, had almost forgotten 
the Serajevo incident. The whole tragic occur- 
rence simply survived in the sympathy which all 
felt with Austria in its new trouble, and especially 
with its aged monarch, who, like King Lear, was 
"as full of grief as age, wretched in both." 

1 Dispatch from Sir M. de Bunsen to Sir Edward Grey, dated 
September I, 191 4. 



34 The Evidence in the Case 

Never was it even hinted that Germany and Aus- 
tria were about to apply in a time of peace a 
match to the powder magazine of Europe. 

Can it be questioned that loyalty to the highest 
interests of civilization required that Germany 
and Austria, when they determined to make the 
murder of the Archduke by an irresponsible 
assassin the pretext for bringing up for final de- 
cision the long-standing troubles between Austria 
and Servia, should have given all the European 
nations some intimation of their intention, so that 
their confreres in the family of nations could co- 
operate to adjust this trouble, as they had adjusted 
far more difficult questions after the close of the 
Balko-Turkish War? 

Whatever the issue of the present conflict, 
it will always be to the lasting discredit of 
Germany and Austria that they were false to 
this great duty, and that they precipitated the 
greatest of all wars in a manner so underhanded 
as to suggest a trap. They knew, as no one else 
knew, in those quiet mid-summer days of July, 
that civilization was about to be suddenly and 
most cruelly torpedoed. The submarine was Ger- 
many and the torpedo, Austria, and the work was 
most effectually done. 

This ignorance of the leading European states- 



Germany and the Austrian Ultimatum 35 

men (other than those of Germany and Austria) 
as to what was impending is strikingly shown 
by the first letter in the English White Paper 
from Sir Edward Grey to Sir H. Rumbold, dated 
July 20, 1 9 14. When this letter was written it is 
altogether probable that Austria's arrogant and 
unreasonable ultimatum had already been framed 
and approved in Vienna and Berlin, and yet Sir 
Edward Grey, the Foreign Minister of a great 
and friendly country, had so little knowledge of 
Austria's policy that he 

asked the German Ambassador to-day (July 20th) 
if he had any news of what was going on in Vienna. 
He replied that he had not, but Austria was cer- 
tainly going to take some step. 

Sir Edward Grey adds that he told the German 
Ambassador that he had learned that Count 
Berchtold, the Austrian Foreign Minister, 

in speaking to the Italian Ambassador in Vienna, 
had deprecated the suggestion that the situation 
was grave, but had said that it should be cleared 
up. 

The German Minister then replied that it would 
be desirable "if Russia could act as a mediator 
with regard to Servia, " so that the first suggestion 
of Russia playing the part of the peacemaker came 
from the German Ambassador in London. Sir 



36 The Evidence in the Case 

Edward Grey then adds that he told the German 
Ambassador that he 

assumed that the Austrian Government would not 
do anything until they had first disclosed to the 
public their case against Servia, founded presum- 
ably upon what they had discovered at the trial, 

and the German Ambassador assented to this 
assumption. x 

Either the German Ambassador was then deceiv- 
ing Sir Edward Grey, or the submarine torpedo 
was being prepared with such secrecy that even 
the German Ambassador in England did not know 
what was then in progress. 

The interesting and important question here 
suggests itself whether Germany had knowledge of 
and approved in advance the Austrian ultimatum. 
If it did, it was guilty of duplicity, for the German 
Ambassador at St. Petersburg gave to the Russian 
Minister of Foreign Affairs an express assurance 
that 

the German Government had no knowledge of the 
text of the Austrian note before it was handed in and 
had not exercised any influence on its contents. It 
is a mistake to attribute to Germany a threatening 
attitude. 2 

1 English White Paper, No. I. 

2 Russian Orange Paper, No. 18. 



Germany and the Austrian Ultimatum 37 

This statement is inherently improbable. Aus- 
tria was the weaker of the two allies, and it was 
Germany's saber that it was rattling in the face 
of Europe. Obviously Austria could not have 
proceeded to extreme measures, which it was 
recognized from the first would antagonize Russia, 
unless it had the support of Germany, and there 
is a probability, amounting to a moral certainty, 
that it would not have committed itself and 
Germany to the possibility of a European war 
without first consulting Germany. 

Moreover, we have the testimony of Sir M. 
de Bunsen, the English Ambassador in Vienna, 
who advised Sir Edward Grey that he had "private 
information that the German Ambassador (at 
Vienna) knew the text of the Austrian ultimatum 
to Servia before it was dispatched, and telegraphed 
it to the German Emperor, " and that the German 
Ambassador himself "indorses every line of it." 1 
As he does not disclose the source of his "private 
information," this testimony would not by itself 
be convincing, but when we examine Germany's 
official defense in the German White Paper, we find 
that the German Foreign Office admits that it was con- 
sulted by Austria previous to the ultimatum and not 

1 English White Paper, No. 95. 



38 The Evidence in the Case 

only approved of Austria's course but literally gave 
that country a carte blanche to proceed. 

This point seems so important in determining 
the sincerity of Germany's attitude and pacific 
protestations that we quote in extenso. After re- 
ferring to the previous friction between Austria 
and Servia, the German White Paper says: 

In view of these circumstances Austria had to 
admit that it would not be consistent either with 
the dignity or self-preservation of the Monarchy 
to look on longer at the operations on the other 
side of the border without taking action. The 
Austro-Hungarian Government advised us of its 
view of the situation and asked our opinion in the 
matter. We were able to assure our Ally most heartily 
of our agreement with her view of the situation and 
to assure her that any action that she might consider 
it necessary to take in order to put an end to the move- 
ment in Servia directed against the existence of the 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy would receive our 
approval. We were fully aware in this connection 
that warlike moves on the part of Austria-Hungary 
against Servia would bring Russia into the question 
and might draw us into a war in accordance with 
our duties as an Ally. 

Sir M. de Bunsen's credible testimony is further 
confirmed by the fact that the British Ambassador 
at Berlin in his letter of July 226., to Sir Edward 
Grey, states that on the preceding night (July 21st) 



Germany and the Austrian Ultimatum 39 

he had met the German Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs, and an allusion was made to a 
possible action by Austria. 

His Excellency was evidently of opinion that this 
step on Austria's part would have been made ere 
this. He insisted that the question at issue was 
one for settlement between Servia and Austria 
alone, and that there should be no interference from 
outside in the discussions between those two coun- 
tries. 

He 2 adds that while he had regarded it as in- 
advisable that his country should approach 
Austria in the matter, he had 

on several occasions, in conversation with the 
Servian Minister, emphasized the extreme import- 
ance that Austro-Servian relations should be put 
on a proper footing. 1 

Here we have the first statement of Germany's 
position in the matter, a position which subsequent 
events showed to be entirely untenable, but to 
which it tenaciously adhered to the very end, 
and which did much to precipitate the war. 
Forgetful of the solidarity of European civiliza- 
tion, and the fact that by policy and diplomatic 
intercourse continuing through many centuries 
a united European State exists, even though its 

1 English White Paper, No. 2 2 Von Jagow. 



40 The Evidence in the Case 

organization be as yet inchoate, he took the 
ground that Austria should be permitted to proceed 
to aggressive measures against Servia without 
interference from any other Power, even though, 
as was inevitable, the humiliation of Servia would 
destroy the status of the Balkan States and 
threaten the European balance of power. The in- 
consistency between Germany's claim that it could 
give Austria a carte blanche to proceed against 
Servia and agree to support its action with the 
sword of Germany, and the other contention that 
neither Russia nor any European State had any 
right to interfere on behalf of Servia is obvious. 
It was the greatest blunder of Germany's many 
blunders in this Tragedy of Errors. 

No space need be taken in convincing any rea- 
sonable man that this Austrian ultimatum to 
Servia was brutal in its tone and unreasonable in 
its demands. It would be difficult to recall 
a more offensive document, and its iniquity was 
enhanced by the short shriving time which it 
gave either Servia or Europe. Servia had forty- 
eight hours to answer whether it would compro- 
mise its sovereignty, and virtually admit its 
complicity in a crime which it had steadily dis- 
avowed. The other European nations had little 
more than a day to consider what could be done 



Germany and the Austrian Ultimatum 41 

to preserve the peace of Europe before that 
peace was fatally compromised. 1 

Further confirmation that the German Foreign 
Office did have advance knowledge of at least the 
substance of the ultimatum is shown by the fact 
that on the day the ultimatum was issued the 
Chancellor of the German Empire instructed its 
Ambassadors in Paris, London, and St. Peters- 
burg to advise the English, French, and Russian 
governments that 

the acts as well as the demands of the Austro- 
Hungarian Government cannot but be looked 
upon as justified. 2 

a 

How could Germany thus indorse the "de- 
mands" if it did not know the substance of the 
ultimatum? Is it probable that Germany would 
have given in a matter of the gravest importance 
a blanket endorsement of Austria's demands, un- 
less the German Government had first been fully 
advised as to their nature? 

The hour when these instructions were sent is 
not given, so that it does not follow that these 
significant instructions were necessarily prior to 
the service of the ultimatum at Belgrade at 6 p.m. 

1 English White Paper, No. 5 ; Russian Orange Paper, No. 3. 

2 German White Paper, Annex 1 B. 



42 The Evidence in the Case 

Nevertheless, as the ultimatum did not reach the 
other capitals of Europe until the following day, 
as the diplomatic correspondence clearly shows, 
it seems improbable that the German Foreign 
Office would have issued this very carefully pre- 
pared and formal warning to the other Powers 
on July the 23d unless it had full knowledge not 
only of Austria's intention to serve the ultimatum 
but also of the substance thereof. 

While it may be that Germany, while indorsing 
in blank the policy of Austria, purposely refrained 
from examining the text of the communication, 
so that it could thereafter claim that it was not 
responsible for Austria's action — a policy which 
would not lessen the discreditable character of this 
iniquitous conspiracy against the peace of Europe, 
; — yet the more reasonable assumption is that the 
simultaneous issuance of Austria's ultimatum at 
Belgrade and Germany's warning to the Powers 
was the result of a concerted action and had a 
common purpose. No court or jury, reasoning 
along the ordinary inferences of human life, would 
question this conclusion. 

The communication from the German Foreign 
Office last referred to anticipates that Servia "will 
refuse to comply with these demands" — why, if 
they were justified? — and Germany suggests to 



Germany and the Austrian Ultimatum 43 

France, England, and Russia that if, as a result 
of such noncompliance, Austria has "recourse to 
military measures," that "the choice of means 
must be left to it." 

The German Ambassadors in the three capitals 
were instructed 

to lay particular stress on the view that the above 
question is one, the settlement of which devolves 
solely upon Austria-Hungary and Servia, and one 
which the Powers should earnestly strive to confine 
to the two countries concerned, 

and the instruction added that Germany strongly 
desired 

that the dispute be localized, since any intervention 
of another Power, on account of the various alliance 
obligations, would bring consequences impossible to 
measure. 

This is one of the most significant documents 
in the whole correspondence. If the German For- 
eign Office were as ignorant as its Ambassador at 
London affected to be of the Austrian policy and 
ultimatum, and if Germany were not then instiga- 
ting and supporting Austria in its perilous course, 
why should the German Chancellor have served 
this threatening notice upon England, France, and 
Russia, that Austria "must" be left free to make 



44 The Evidence in the Case 

war upon Servia, and that any attempt to inter- 
vene in behalf of the weaker nation would "bring 
consequences impossible to measure"? 1 

A still more important piece of evidence is the 
carefully prepared confidential communication, 
which the Imperial Chancellor sent to the Feder- 
ated Governments of Germany shortly after the 
Servian reply was given. 

In this confidential communication, which was 
nothing less than a call to arms to the entire 
German Empire, and which probably intended 
to convey the intimation that without formal 
mobilization the constituent states of Germany 
should begin to prepare for eventualities, Von 
Bethmann-Hollweg recognized the possibility that 
Russia might feel it a duty "to take the part of 
Servia in her dispute with Austria-Hungary." 
Why, again, if Austria's case was so clearly justi- 
fied? 

The Imperial Chancellor added that 

if Russia feels constrained to take sides with Servia 
in this conflict, she certainly has a right to do it, 

but added that if Russia did this it would in effect 
challenge the integrity of the Austro-Hungarian 

1 German White Paper, Annex I B. 



Germany and the Austrian Ultimatum 45 

Monarchy, and that Russia would therefore 
alone 

bear the responsibility if a European war arises 
from the Austro- Servian question, which all the 
rest of the great European Powers wish to localize. 

In this significant confidential communication 
the German Chancellor declares the strong interest 
which Germany had in the punishment of Servia 
by Austria. He says, " our closest interests therefore 
summon us to the side of Austria-Hungary" and 
he adds that 

if contrary to hope, the trouble should spread, 
owing to the intervention of Russia, then, true to 
our duty as an Ally, we should have to support the 
neighboring monarchy with the entire might of the 
German Empire. ] 

It staggers ordinary credulity to believe that 
this portentous warning to the constituents of the 
German Empire to prepare for "the Day" should 
not have been written with advance knowledge of 
the Austrian ultimatum, which had only been issued 
on July 23d and only reached the other capitals of 
Europe on July 24th. The subsequent naive dis- 
claimer by the German Foreign Office of any ex- 
pectation that Austria's attack upon Servia could 

1 German White Paper, Annex 2. 



46 The Evidence in the Case 

possibly have any interest to other European Pow- 
ers is hardly consistent with its assertion that 
Germany's "closest interests" were involved in the 
question, or the portentous warnings to the States 
of the Empire to prepare for eventualities. 

The German Ambassador to the United States, 
who attempted early in the controversy and with 
disastrous results, to allay the rising storm of in- 
dignation in that country, formally admitted in 
an article in the Independent of September 7, 19 14, 
that Germany " did approve in advance the Austrian 
ultimatum to Servia." 

Why then was Germany guilty of duplicity in 
disclaiming, concurrently with its issuance, any 
such responsibility ? The answer is obvious. This 
was necessary to support its contention that the 
quarrel between Austria and Servia was purely 
"local." 

Note. — In Chapter VII it will appear from the French Yellow 
Book that the Prime Minister of Bavaria had knowledge of the 
Austrian ultimatum before its delivery in Belgrade. 



CHAPTER V 

THE ULTIMATUM TO SERVIA 

To convince any reasonable man that this 
Austrian ultimatum to Servia was brutal in its 
tone and unreasonable in its demands, and that 
the reply of Servia was as complete an acqui- 
escence as Servia could make without a fatal 
compromise of its sovereignty and self-respect, it 
is only necessary to print in parallel columns 
the demands of Austria and the reply of Servia. 



AUSTRIA'S ULTIMATUM 
TO SERVIA 

"To achieve this end the 
Imperial and Royal Govern- 
ment sees itself compelled to 
demand from the Royal Ser- 
vian Government a formal 
assurance that it condemns this 
dangerous propaganda against 
the Monarchy; in other words, 
the whole series of tenden- 
cies, the ultimate aim of which 
is to detach from the Monarchy 
territories belonging to it, and 
that it undertakes to suppress 



THE SERVIAN REPLY 

"The Royal Government 
has received the notification of 
the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment of the loth inst., and is 
convinced that its answer will 
remove every misunderstand- 
ing that threatens to disturb 
the pleasant neighborly rela- 
tions between the Austro- 
Hungarian Monarchy and the 
Servian Kingdom. 

"The Royal Government is 
certain that in dealing with 
the great neighboring mon- 



47 



4 8 



The Evidence in the Case 



by every means this criminal 
and terrorist propaganda. 

"In order to give a formal 
character to this undertaking 
the Royal Servian Government 
shall publish on the front page 
of its ' Official Journal 1 of the 
26th July, the following 
declaration : 

'"The Royal Government 
of Servia condemns the propa- 
ganda directed against Austria- 
Hungary — i.e., the general ten- 
dency of which the final aim 
is to detach from the Austro- 
Hungarian Monarchy terri- 
tories belonging to it, and it 
sincerely deplores the fatal 
consequence of these criminal 
proceedings. 

'"The Royal Government 
regrets that Servian officers 
and functionaries participated 
in the above-mentioned pro- 
paganda, and thus compro- 
mised the good neighborly 
relations to which the Royal 
Government was solemnly 
pledged by its declaration of 
the 31st March, 1909. 

"'The Royal Government, 
which disapproves and repu- 
diates all idea of interfering 
or attempting to interfere with 
the destinies of the inhabitants 
of any part whatsoever of 
Austria-Hungary, considers it 
its duty formally to warn 
officers and functionaries, and 
the whole population of the 



archy these protests have 
under no pretexts been re- 
newed which formerly were 
made both in the Skupshtina 
and in explanations and nego- 
tiations of responsible repre- 
sentatives of the State, and 
which, through the declaration 
of the Servian Government of 
March 18, 1909, were settled; 
furthermore, that since that 
time none of the various 
successive Governments of the 
kingdom, nor any of its officers, 
has made an attempt to change 
the political and legal condi- 
tions set up in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. The Royal 
Government is certain that the 
Austro-Hungarian Government 
has made no representations of 
any kind along this line except 
in the case of a textbook con- 
cerning which the Austro- 
Hungarian Government re- 
ceived an entirely satis- 
factory reply. Servia, during 
the Balkan crisis, gave evidence 
in numerous cases of her pacific 
and temperate policies, and it 
will be thanks to Servia alone 
and the sacrifices that she 
alone made in the interest of 
European peace if that peace 
continue. 

"The Royal Government 
cannot be held responsible for 
utterances of a private char- 
acter such as newspaper articles 
and the peaceful work of so- 



The Ultimatum to Servia 



49 



kingdom, that henceforward it 
■will proceed with the utmost 
rigor against persons who may 
be guilty of such machinations, 
winch it " :'. use all its efforts 
to anticipate and sup- 

" This declare:: mi shall simul- 
taneously be communicated to 
the Royal Amy s.s __ :rde: 
of Che lay by His Majesty 
the King =._ 1 shall 
in the 'Official Bulletin' of the 
Amy. 



cieties, utterances which are 
quite ordinary in almost all 
countries, and which are not 
generally under State control, 
especially since the ? 

;rnment, in the solution 
of a great number of questions 
that -jame up between S 
and Austria-Hungary., she 
h consideration as a result 
iel most of these ques- 
tions .' led in the best 
interests of the progress of Che 
:ou_tries. 
"The Royal Government 
- a ; thei .. uHy 

hear the contention 
that Servian subjects had taken 
part in the preparations far the 
murder committed in Seraje o. 
It had hoped to be invited to 
cooperate in the aiions 

i 
prepared, in order prove the 
entire con sctness of its at::. 
to proceed against all person . 
Doncermi ; bom it had re- 
ceived mfcrmat: 

"In amformity with the 
of the Anstro-Hmigarian 
Government, the Royal 3c 
ernment is prepared to turn 
ec the court, regardless of 
n or rank, any Servian 
subject concerning whose par- 
ticipatitr. in Che crime at 
Serajevo proofs may be given 
to it. 1 he GSover_ 
pledges itsel: e17.e-.ii_y tj 
publish en the drst page . 



50 



The Evidence in the Case 



"The Royal Servian Gov- 
ernment further undertakes: 

"i. To suppress any pub- 
lication which incites to hatred 
and contempt of the Austro- 
Hungarian Monarchy and the 
general tendency of which is 
directed against its territorial 
integrity; 



official organ of July 26th the 
following declaration : 

"'The Royal Servian Gov- 
ernment condemns every pro- 
paganda that may be directed 
against Austria-Hungary; that 
is to say, all efforts designed 
ultimately to sever territory 
from the Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy, and it regrets sin- 
cerely the sad consequences of 
these criminal machinations.' 

"The Royal Government 
regrets that, in accordance 
with advices from the Austro- 
Hungarian Government, cer- 
tain Servian officers and func- 
tionaries are taking an active 
part in the present propaganda, 
and that they have thereby 
jeopardized the pleasant neigh- 
borly relations to the main- 
tenance of which the Royal 
Government was formally 
pledged by the declaration of 
March 31, 1909. 

"The Government (what 
follows here is similar to the 
text demanded). 

"The Royal Government 
further pledges itself : 

"1. To introduce a provi- 
sion in the press law on the 
occasion of the next regular 
session of the Skupshtina, 
according to which instigations 
to hatred and contempt of the 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 



The Ultimatum to Servia 



5i 



"2. To dissolve immediate- 
ly the society styled Narodna 
Odbrana, to confiscate all its 
means of propaganda, and to 
proceed in the same manner 
against other societies and 
their branches in Servia which 
engage in propaganda against 
the Austro-Hungarian Mon- 
archy. The Royal Govern- 
ment shall take the necessary 
measures to prevent the socie- 
ties dissolved from continuing 
their activity under another 
name and form; 

"3. To eliminate without 
delay from public instruction 
in Servia, both as regards the 
teaching body and also as re- 
gards the methods of instruc- 
tion, everything that serves, 
or might serve, to foment the 
propaganda against Austria- 
Hungary; 



as well as any publication 
directed in general against the 
territorial integrity of Austria- 
Hungary, shall be punished 
severely. 

"The Government pledges 
itself, on the occasion of the 
coming revision of the Con- 
stitution, to add to Article 
XXII. a clause permitting the 
confiscation of publications, 
the confiscation of which, 
under the present Article XXII. 
of the Constitution, would be 
impossible. 

"2. The Government pos- 
sesses no proof — and the Note 
of the Austro-Hungarian Gov- 
ernment provides it with none 
— that the ' Narodna Odbrana' 
Society and other similar asso- 
ciations have up to the present 
committed any criminal acts 
through any of their members. 
Nevertheless, the Royal Gov- 
ernment will accept the de- 
mand of the Austro-Hungarian 
Government and dissolve the 
Narodna Odbrana Society, as 
well as all societies that may 
work against Austria-Hungary, 

"3. The Royal Servian 
Government agrees to elimi- 
nate forthwith from public 
education in Servia everything 
that might help the propaganda 
against Austria-Hungary, pro- 
vided that the Austro-Hungar- 
ian Government gives it actual 
proof of this propaganda. 



52 



The "Evidence in the Case 



"4. To remove from the 
military service, and from the 
administration in general, all 
officers and functionaries 
guilty of propaganda against 
the Austro-Hungarian Mon- 
archy whose names and deeds 
the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment reserves to itself the 
right of communicating to the 
Royal Government ; 



"5. To accept the collabo- 
ration in Servia of representa- 
tives of the Austro-Hungarian 
Government in the suppression 
of the subversive movement 
directed against the territorial 
integrity of the Monarchy; 



"6. To take judicial pro- 
ceedings against accessories to 
the plot of the 28th June who 
are on Servian territory. Dele- 
gates of the Austro-Hungarian 



"4. The Royal Govern- 
ment is also ready to discharge 
from military and civil service 
such officers — provided it is 
proved against them by legal 
investigation — who have im- 
plicated themselves in acts 
directed against the territorial 
integrity of the Austro-Hun- 
garian Monarchy; the Govern- 
ment expects that, for the 
purpose of instituting pro- 
ceedings, the Austro-Hunga- 
rian Government will impart 
the names of these officers and 
employes and the acts of which 
they are accused. 

"5. The Royal Servian 
Government must confess that 
it is not quite clear as to the 
sense and scope of the desire of 
the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment to the effect that the 
Royal Servian Government 
bind itself to allow the co- 
operation within its territory 
of representatives of the Aus- 
tro-Hungarian Government, 
but it nevertheless declares 
itself willing to permit such 
cooperation as might be in 
conformity with international 
law and criminal procedure, as 
well as with friendly neighborly 
relations. 

"6. The Royal Govern- 
ment naturally holds itself 
bound to institute an investiga- 
tion against all such persons 
as were concerned in the plot 



The Ultimatum to Servia 



53 



Government will take part 
in the investigation relating 
thereto; 



"7. To proceed without 
delay to the arrest of Major 
Voija Tankositch and of the in- 
dividual named Milan Cigano- 
vitch, a Servian State employe, 
who have been compromised by 
the results of the magisterial 
enquiry at Serajevo; 



of June i5th-28th, or are 
supposed to have been con- 
cerned in it, and are on Servian 
soil. As to the cooperation of 
special delegates of the Austro- 
Hungarian Government in this 
investigation, the Servian 
Government cannot accept 
such cooperation, since this 
would be a violation of the 
laws and criminal procedure. 
However, in individual cases, 
information as to the progress 
of the investigation might be 
given to the Austro-Hungarian 
delegates. 

" 7. On the very evening on 
which your Note arrived the 
Royal Government caused the 
arrest of Major Voislar Tan- 
kosic. But, regarding Milan 
Ciganovic, who is a subject of 
the Austro-Hungarian Mon- 
archy, and who was employed 
until June 15th (as candidate) 
in the Department of Railroads 
it has not been possible to 
arrest this man up till now, 
for which reason a warrant 
has been issued against 
him. 

"The Austro-Hungarian 
Government is requested, in 
order that the investigation 
may be made as soon as possi- 
ble, to make known in the 
specified form what grounds of 
suspicion exist, and the proofs 
of guilt collected at the in- 
vestigation in Serajevo. 



54 



The Evidence in the Case 



" 8. To prevent by effective 
measures the cooperation of 
the Servian authorities in the 
illicit traffic in arms and explo- 
sives across the frontier, to 
dismiss and punish severely the 
officials of the frontier service 
at Schabatz and Loznica guilty 
of having assisted the perpe- 
trators of the Serajevo crime 
by facilitating their passage 
across the frontier: 



"9. To furnish the Im- 
perial and Royal Government 
with explanations regarding 
the unjustifiable utterances of 
high Servian officials, both in 
Servia and abroad, who, not- 
withstanding their official posi- 
tion, did not hesitate after the 
crime of the 28 th June to ex- 
press themselves in interviews 
in terms of hostility to the 
Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment; and finally, 



"10. To notify the Im- 
perial and Royal Government 
without delay of the execution 
of the measures comprised 
under the preceding heads. 

"The Austro-Hungarian 
Government expects the reply 



"8. The Servian Govern- 
ment will increase the severity 
and scope of its measures 
against the smuggling of arms 
and explosives. 

"It goes without saying that 
it will at once start an investi- 
gation and mete out severe 
punishment to the frontier 
officials of the Sabac-Loznica 
line who failed in their duty 
and allowed those responsible 
for the crime to cross the 
frontier. 

"9. The Royal Govern- 
ment is willing to give explana- 
tions of the statements made in 
interviews by its officials in 
Servia and foreign countries 
after the crime, and which, 
according to the Austro-Hun- 
garian Government, were anti- 
Austrian, as soon as the said 
Government indicates where 
these statements were made, 
and provides proofs that such 
statements were actually made 
by the said officials. The 
Royal Government will itself 
take steps to collect the neces- 
sary proofs and means of 
transmission for this purpose. 

"10. The Royal Govern- 
ment will, in so far as this has 
not already occurred in this 
Note, inform the Austro-Hun- 
garian Government of the 
taking of the measures con- 
cerning the foregoing mat- 
ters, as soon as such measures 



The Ultimatum to Servia 55 

of the Royal Government at have been ordered and carried 

the latest by six o'clock on Sat- out. 

urday evening, the 25th July. " " The Royal Servian Govern- 

ment is of the opinion that it 
is mutually advantageous not 
to hinder the settlement of this 
question, and therefore, in case 
the Austro-Hungarian Gov- 
ernment should not consider 
itself satisfied with this answer, 
it is ready as always to accept 
a peaceful solution, either by 
referring the decision of this 
question to the international 
tribunal at The Hague, or by 
leaving it to the great Powers 
who cooperated in the prepara- 
tion of the explanation given 
by the Servian Government on 
the i7th-3ist March, 1909." 

It increases the ineffaceable discredit of this 
brutal ultimatum when we consider the relative 
size of the two nations. Austria has a population 
of over 50,000,000 and Servia about 4,000,000. 
Moreover, Servia had just emerged from two ter- 
rible conflicts, from which it was still bleeding to 
exhaustion. Austria's ultimatum was that of a Go- 
liath to David, and, up to the hour that this book 
goes to press, the result has not been different from 
that famous conflict. 

Germany itself had already given to Servia an 
intimation of its intended fate. It had anticipated 
the Austrian ultimatum by some pointed sugges- 



56 The Evidence in the Case 

tions to Servia on its own account, for in the 
letter already quoted from Sir M. de Bunsen to 
Sir Edward Grey, we learn that the German 
Secretary of State told the British Ambassador 
before the ultimatum was issued that he 

on several occasions, in conversation with the 
Servian Minister, emphasized the extreme import- 
ance that Austro-Servian relations should be put 
on a proper footing. x 

This pointed intimation from Germany, thus 
preceding the formal ultimatum from Austria, 
naturally gave Servia a quick appreciation that 
within the short space allowed by the ultimatum, 
it must either acquiesce in grossly unreasonable 
demands or perish as an independent nation. 

To appreciate fully the brutality of this ulti- 
matum let us imagine a precise analogy. 

The relations of France and Germany — leav- 
ing aside the important difference of relative size 
—are not unlike the relations that existed be- 
tween Servia and Austria. In 1908, Austria had 
forcibly annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, both 
of them Slav countries, and when Servia had 
emerged from the Balkan-Turkish War with signal 
credit to itself, it was again Austria that had 

1 In English White Paper, No. 2. 



The Ultimatum to Servia 57 

intervened and deprived it of the fruit of its 
victories by denying it access to the sea. 

Similarly, by the Treaty of Frankfort, Germany 
had forcibly annexed Alsace and Lorraine from 
France. As there existed in Servia voluntary 
organizations of men, which ceaselessly agitated 
for the recovery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so 
in France similar patriotic organizations have for 
the last forty years continuously agitated for a 
war which would lead to the ultimate recovery of 
Alsace and Lorraine. The statue of Strassburg in 
the Place de la Concorde has been covered with 
the emblems of mourning from the time that Bis- 
marck wrung from Jules Favre the cession of the 
Rhine territory. If Austria's grievance against 
Servia were just, Germany has an equal and 
similar grievance against France. 

Under these circumstances let us suppose that 
on the occasion of the visit of the German Crown 
Prince to Strassburg, that an Alsatian citizen of 
German nationality, having strong French sym- 
pathies, had assassinated the Crown Prince, and 
that France had formally disclaimed any com- 
plicity in the assassination and expressed its 
sympathy and regret. 

Mutatis mutandis, let us suppose that Germany 
had thereupon issued to France the same ultima- 



58 The Evidence in the Case 

turn that Austria issued to Servia, requiring France 
to acknowledge moral responsibility for a crime, 
which it steadily disavowed. The ultimatum to 
France in that event would have included a per- 
emptory demand that the government of France, 
a proud and self-respecting country, should pub- 
lish in the Official Journal, and communicate as 
an " order of the day" to the army of France, a 
statement that the French Government formally 
denounced all attempts to recover Alsace and 
Lorraine; that it regretted the participation of 
French officers in the murder of the German Crown 
Prince ; that it engaged to suppress in the Press of 
France any expressions of hatred or contempt for 
Germany; that it would dissolve all patriotic 
societies that have for their object the recovery 
of the "lost provinces"; that it would eliminate 
from the public schools of France all instruction 
which served to foment feeling against Germany; 
that it would remove from its army all officers who 
had joined in the agitation against Germany; 
that it would accept in the courts of France the 
participation of German officials in determining 
who were guilty, either of the Strassburg murder 
or of the propaganda for the recovery of Alsace 
and Lorraine; that it would further proceed to 
arrest and punish certain French officers, whom the 



The Ultimatum to Servia 59 

German Government charged with participating 
in the offensive propaganda, and that it would 
furnish the German Government with full explana- 
tions and information in reference to its execution 
of these peremptory demands. 

Let us suppose that such an ultimatum having 
been sent, that France had been given forty- 
eight hours to comply with conditions which were 
obviously fatal to its self-respect and forever 
destructive of its prestige as a great Power. 

Can it be questioned what the reply of France 
or the judgment of the world would be in such a 
quarrel? 

Every fair-minded man would say without hesi- 
tation that such an ultimatum would be an unprece- 
dented outrage upon the fine proprieties of civilized 
life. 

The only difference between the two cases is the 
fact that in the case of Germany and France the 
power issuing the ultimatum would be less than 
double the size of that nation which it sought to 
coerce, while in the case of Austria and Servia, 
the aggressor was twelve times as powerful as the 
power whose moral prestige and political indepen- 
dence it sought to destroy. 

In view of the nature of these demands, the 
assurance which Austria subsequently gave Russia, 



60 The Evidence in the Case 

that she would do nothing to lessen the territory of 
Servia, goes for nothing. From the standpoint 
of Servia, it would have been far better to lose 
a part of its territory and keep its indepen- 
dence and self-respect as to the remainder, than to 
retain all its existing land area, and by submitting 
to the ultimatum become virtually a vassal state 
of Austria. Certainly if Servia had acquiesced 
fully in Austria's demands without any qualifica- 
tion or reservation (as for the sake of peace it 
almost did), then Austria would have enjoyed a 
moral protectorate over all of Servia's territory, 
and its ultimate fate might have been that of Bos- 
nia and Herzegovina, which Austria first governed 
as a protectorate, and later forcibly annexed. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PEACE PARLEYS 

, The issuance of the Austrian ultimatum precipi- 
tated a grave crisis. It did not, however, present 
any insoluble problem. Peace could and should have 
been preserved. Its preservation is always possi- 
ble when nations, which may be involved in a 
controversy, are inspired by a reasonably pacific 
purpose. Only when the masses of the people are 
inflamed with a passionate desire for war, and in a 
time of popular hysteria responsible statesmen are 
helplessly borne along the turgid flow of events 
as bubbles are carried by the swift current of a 
swollen river, is peace a visionary dream. 

It is the peculiarity of the present crisis that 
no such popular hysteria existed. No popular de- 
mand for war developed until after it was virtually 
precipitated. Even then large classes of working- 
men, both in Germany and France, protested. 

The peoples of the various countries had scant 
knowledge of the issues which had been raised 
by their diplomats and had little, if any, interest 

61 



62 The Evidence in the Case 

in the Servian trouble. The chief exception to this 
was in Austria, where unquestionably popular feel- 
ing had been powerfully excited by the murder 
of the Archduke and where there had been, es- 
pecially in Vienna, popular manifestations in favor 
of war. In Russia also there was not unnaturally 
a strong undercurrent of popular sympathy for 
Servia. 

The writer was in the Engadine at the time 
referred to, and cosmopolitan St. Moritz, although 
a little place, was, in its heterogeneous population, 
Europe in microcosmic form. There the average 
man continued to enjoy his midsummer holiday 
and refused to believe that so great a catastrophe 
was imminent until the last two fateful days in 
July. The citizens of all nations continued to 
fraternize, and were one in amazement that a war 
could be precipitated on causes in which the 
average man took so slight an interest. 

Unembarrassed by any popular clamor, this war 
could have been prevented, and the important 
question presents itself to the Supreme Court of 
Civilization as to the moral responsibility for the 
failure of the negotiations. 

Which of the two groups of powers sincerely 
worked for peace and which obstructed those 
efforts? 



The Peace Parleys 63 

In reaching its conclusion our imaginary Court 
would pay little attention to mere professions of a 
desire for peace. A nation, like an individual, 
can covertly stab the peace of another while 
saying, "Art thou in health, my brother?" and 
even the peace of civilization can be betrayed by a 
Judas-kiss. Professions of peace belong to the 
cant of diplomacy and have always characterized 
the most bellicose of nations. 

No war in modern times has been begun without 
the aggressor pretending that his nation wished 
nothing but peace, and invoking divine aid for its 
murderous policy. To paraphrase the words of 
Lady Teazle on a noted occasion, when Sir Joseph 
Surface talked much of " honor, " it might be as 
well in such instances to leave the name of God 
out of the question. 

The writer will so far anticipate the conclusions, 
which he thinks these records indisputably show, 
as to suggest the respective attitudes of the differ- 
ent groups of diplomats and statesmen as revealed 
by these papers. If the reader will realize fully 
the policy which from the first animated Germany 
and Austria, then the documents hereinafter quoted 
will acquire new significance. 

Germany and Austria had determined to impose 
their will upon Servia, even though it involved 



64 The Evidence in the Case 

a European war. From the outset they clearly 
recognized such a possibility and were willing to 
accept the responsibility. 

The object to be gained was something more 
than a neutralization of the pro-Slav propaganda.. 
It was to subject Servia to such severe punitive 
measures that thereafter her independence of 
will and moral sovereignty would be largely im- 
paired, if not altogether destroyed. To do this 
it was not enough to have Servia take measures 
to prevent pro-Slav agitation within her borders. 
Austria neither wanted nor expected the accept- 
ance of her impossible ultimatum. 

It planned to submit such an ultimatum as 
Servia could not possibly accept and, to make 
this result doubly sure, it was thought desirable to 
give not only Servia but Europe the minimum 
time to take any preventive measures. Giving to 
Servia only forty-eight hours within which to reach 
a decision and to Europe barely twenty-four hours 
to protect the peace of the world, it was thought 
that Servia would do one of two things, either of 
which would be of incalculable importance to 
Germany and Austria. 

If Servia accepted the ultimatum for lack of 
time to consider it, then its self-respect was hope- 
lessly compromised and its independence largely 



The Peace Parleys 65 

destroyed. Thenceforth she would be, at least 
morally, a mere vassal of Austria. 

If, however, Servia declined to accept the 
ultimatum, then war would immediately begin 
and Servia would be, as was thought, speedily 
subjected to punitive measures of such a drastic 
character that the same result would be attained. 

From the commencement, both Germany and 
Austria recognized the possibility that Russia 
might intervene to protect Servia. To prevent 
this it was important that Russia and her allies of 
the Triple Entente should be given as little time as 
possible to consider their action, and it was thought 
that this would probably lead to Russia's acqui- 
escence in the punishment of Servia and, if so, 
France and England, having no direct interest in 
Servia, would also undoubtedly acquiesce. 

If, however, slow-moving Russia, instead of 
acquiescing, as she did in 1908 in the case of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, should take up the 
gauntlet which Germany and Austria had thrown 
down, then it was all important to Germany and 
Austria that Russia should seem to be the aggressor. 

For this there were two substantial reasons: 
the one was Italy and the other was England. 
Germany and Austria desired the cooperation 
of Italy and could not claim it as of right under 



66 The Evidence in the Case 

the terms of the Triple Alliance, unless they were 
attacked. Upon the other hand, if England 
believed that Russia and France had declared war 
upon Germany and Austria, there was little proba- 
bility of her intervention. For these reasons 
it was important that Germany and Austria should 
impress both England and Italy that their pur- 
poses were sincerely pacific and that on the other 
hand they should so clearly provoke Russia and 
France that those nations would declare war. 

If the reader will keep this Janus-faced policy 
steadily in mind, he will understand the apparent 
inconsistencies in the diplomatic representations 
of the German Foreign Office. He will under- 
stand why Germany and Austria, while at times 
flouting Russia in the most flagrant manner and 
refusing her the common courtesies of diplomatic 
intercourse, were at the same time giving to 
England the most emphatic assurance of pacific 
intentions. 

With this preliminary statement, let the 
record speak for itself. We have seen that the 
first great, and as events proved, fatal obstacle to 
peace which Germany interposed was practically 
contemporaneous with the issuance of the ulti- 
matum. Germany did not wait for any efforts 
at conciliation. On the contrary, it attempted 



The Peace Parleys 67 

to bar effectually all such efforts by serving 
notice upon France, England, and Russia almost 
simultaneously with the issuance of the Austrian 
ultimatum, 

that the acts as well as the demands of the Austro- 
Hungarian Government cannot but be looked upon 
as justified ; 

and the communication concluded: 

We strongly desire that the dispute be localized, 
since any intervention of any Power on account of 
the various alliance obligations would bring conse- 
quences impossible to measure. 1 

This had only one meaning. Austria was to be 
left to discipline Servia at will, or there would 
be war. Germany did not even wait for any sug- 
gestion of intervention, whether conciliatory or 
otherwise, but sought to interpose to any plan 
of peace, short of complete submission, an in- 
superable barrier by this threat of war. With 
this pointed threat to Europe, the next move was 
that of Russia, and it may be remarked that 
throughout the entire negotiations Russian dip- 
lomacy was more than equal to that of Germany. 

Russia contented itself in the first instance 
by stating on the morning of July 24th, that 

1 German White Paper, Annex, i B. 



68 The Evidence in the Case 

Russia could not remain indifferent to the Austro- 
Servian conflict. This attitude could not surprise 
any one, for Russia's interest in the Balkans was 
well known and its legitimate concern in the 
future of any Slav state was, as Sir Edward 
Grey had said in Parliament in March, 1913, 
"a commonplace in European diplomacy in the 
past." 

With this simple statement of its legitimate 
interest in a matter affecting the balance of power 
in Europe, Russia, instead of issuing an ultimatum 
or declaring war, as Germany and Austria may 
have hoped, joined with England in asking for a 
reasonable extension of time for all the Powers to 
concert for the preservation of peace. On July 
24th, the very day that the Austrian ultimatum 
had reached St. Petersburg, the Russian For- 
eign Minister transmitted to the Austrian Gov- 
ernment through its Charge in Vienna the following 
communication : 

The communication of the Austro-Hungarian 
Government to the Powers the day after the pre- 
sentation of the ultimatum to Belgrade leaves to the 
Powers a delay entirely insufficient to undertake any 
useful steps whatever for the straightening out of the 
complications that have arisen. To prevent the 
incalculable consequences, equally disastrous for all 
the Powers, which can follow the method of action 



The Peace Parleys 69 

of the Austro-Hungarian Government, it seems 
indispensable to us that above all the delay given 
to Servia to reply should be extended. Austria- 
Hungary, declaring herself disposed to inform the 
Powers of the results -of the inquiry upon which the 
Imperial and Royal Government bases its accusations, 
should at least give them also the time to take note of 
them (de s'en rendre compte). In this case s if the 
Powers should convince themselves of the well- 
groundedness of certain of the Austrian demands 
they would find themselves in a position to send to the 
Servian Government consequential advice. A refusal 
to extend the terms of the ultimatum would deprive 
of all value the step taken by the Austro-Hungarian 
Government in regard to the Powers and would 
be in contradiction with the very bases of inter- 
national relations, * 

Could any court question the justice of this 
contention? The peace of the world was at stake. 
Time only was asked to see what could be done to 
preserve that peace and satisfy Austria's grievances 
to the uttermost. 

Germany had only to intimate to Austria that 
"a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," 
as well as common courtesy to great and friendly 
nations, required that sufficient time be given not 
only to Servia, but to the other nations, to concert 
for the common good, especially as the period was 
one of mid-summer dullness, and many of the 

1 Russian Orange Paper, No. 4. 



70 The Evidence in the Case 

leading rulers and statesmen were absent from 
their respective capitals. 

If Germany made any communication to Aus- 
tria in the interests of peace the text has yet to 
be disclosed to the world. A word from Berlin 
to Vienna would have given the additional time 
which, with sincerely pacific intentions, might 
have resulted in the preservation of peace. Ger- 
many, so far as the record discloses, never spoke 
that word. 

England had already anticipated the request of 
Russia that a reasonable time should be given to 
all interested parties. When the Austrian Minister 
in London handed the ultimatum to Sir Edward 
Grey on July the 24th, the following conversation 
took place, which speaks for itself: 

In the ensuing conversation with his Excellency 
I (Sir Edward Grey) remarked that it seemed to 
me a matter for great regret that a time limit, and 
such a short one at that, had been insisted upon at 
this stage of the proceedings. The murder of the 
Archduke and some of the circumstances respecting 
Servia quoted in the note aroused sympathy with 
Austria, as was but natural, but at the same time I had 
never before seen one State address to another inde- 
pendent State a document of so formidable a character. 
Count Mensdorff replied that the present situation 
might never have arisen if Servia had held out a 
hand after the murder of the Archduke. Servia had, 



The Peace Parleys 71 

however, shown no sign of sympathy or help, though 
some weeks had already elapsed since the murder; 
a time limit, said his Excellency, was essential, 
owing to the procrastination on Servia's part. 

I said that if Servia had procrastinated in reply- 
ing a time limit could have been introduced later; 
but, as things now stood, the terms of the Servian reply 
had been dictated by Austria, who had not been content 
to limit herself to a demand for a reply within a limit 
of forty-eight hours from its presentation. 

Unfortunately both Russia and England's re- 
quests for time were refused, on the plea that 
they had reached the Austrian Foreign Minis- 
ter too late, although it has never yet been ex- 
plained why, even if Count Berchtold were unable 
to take up the requests before the expiration of 
the ultimatum, the matter might not have been 
reopened for a few days by a corresponding exten- 
sion of the time limit. 

In the absence of some explanation, which as 
yet remains to be made, the absence of the 
Austrian Premier from Vienna at the time inter- 
vening between the issuance of the ultimatum and 
the expiration of the time limit seems like an ex- 
traordinarily petty piece of diplomatic finesse. He 
had without any warning to the great Powers of 
Europe, launched a thunderbolt, and if there ever 
was a time when a pacific foreign minister should 



72 The Evidence in the Case 

have been at his post and open to suggestions of 
peace, it was in those two critical days. And yet, 
after issuing the ultimatum, he immediately takes 
himself beyond reach of personal parleys by going 
to Ischl, and this was taken by the German Foreign 
Office as a convenient excuse for an anticipated 
failure to extend this courtesy to Russia and Eng- 
land. Upon this we have the testimony of the 
English Ambassador at Berlin, who in his report 
to Sir Edward Grey, dated July 25th, says : 

[The German] Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 
says that on receipt of a telegram at ten o'clock this 
morning from German Ambassador at London, he 
immediately instructed German Ambassador at 
Vienna to pass on to the Austrian Minister for 
Foreign Affairs your suggestion, for an extension of 
time limit, and to speak to his Excellency about it. 
Unfortunately it appeared from the press that Count 
Berchtold is at Ischl, and Secretary of State 
thought that in these circumstances there would be 
delay and difficulty in getting time limit extended. 
Secretary of State said that he did not know what 
Austria-Hungary had ready on the spot, but he 
admitted quite freely that Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment wished to give the Servians a lesson, and that 
they meant to take military action. He also admitted 
that Servian Government could not swallow certain 
of the Austro-Hungarian demands. . . . 

A like excuse is found in a conversation with the 



The Peace Parleys 73 

Russian Charge at Berlin, in which Bethmann- 
Hollweg expressed the fear "that in consequence 
of the absence of Berchtold at Ischl, and seeing 
the lack of time, his (Bethmann-Hollweg's tele- 
grams suggesting delay) will remain without 
result." 

These conversations are most illuminating. They 
refer to instructions to the German Ambassador 
in Vienna, which are not found in the German 
White Paper, although they would have thrown 
a searchlight upon the sincerity, with which 
Germany "passed on" the most important request 
of England and Russia for a little time to save the 
peace of Europe, and it strongly suggests the possi- 
bility that Count Berchtold's most inopportune 
absence in Ischl was to be the excuse for the gross 
discourtesy of refusing to give any extension of 
time. 

Kudachef, the Russian Charge at Vienna, did 
not content himself with submitting the request to 
the Acting Foreign Minister (Baron Macchio) but 
to deprive Austria of the flimsy excuse of Berch- 
told's absence at Ischl, the Russian Charge went 
over the head of the Austrian Acting Foreign 
Minister and telegraphed the request for time to 
Count Berchtold at Ischl. Let the record tell for 

1 Russian OrangePaper, No. 14. 



74 The Evidence in the Case 

itself how this most reasonable request was made 
and refused. 

The Russian Charge sent on July 25th the 
two following telegrams to the Russian Foreign 
Minister : 

Count Berchtold is at Ischl. Seeing the im- 
possibility of arriving there in time, I have tele- 
graphed him our proposal to extend the delay of the 
ultimatum, and I have repeated it verbally to Baron 
Macchio. This latter promised me to communicate 
it in time to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but 
added that he could predict with assurance a categorical 
refusal. * 

Sequel to my telegram of to-day. Have just 
received from Macchio the negative reply of the 
Austro-Hungarian Government to our proposal to 
prolong the delay of the note. 2 

It is evident from the Russian Orange Paper 
that that country had no illusions as to the possi- 
bility of a peaceful outcome. Germany has 
contended that on July the 24th, before Count 
Berchtold made his inopportune visit to Ischl, 
he sent for the Russian Charge at Vienna and 
assured him that the punitive measures which 
Austria had determined to take against Servia 

1 Russian Orange Paper, No. II. 
3 Russian Orange Paper, No. 12. 



The Peace Parleys 75 

at all costs would not involve any territorial 
acquisitions. 

Of this interview the chief evidence comes in- 
directly from two sources, which are not entirely 
in accord. 

In a telegram from the German Ambassador 
at Vienna to the German Chancellor, dated July 
24th, it is said : 

Count Berchtold to-day summoned the Russian 
Charge d' Affaires in order to explain to him in 
detail and in friendly terms the position of Austria 
regarding Servia. After going over the historical 
developments of the last few years, he laid stress 
on the statement that the monarchy did not wish to 
appear against Servia in the role of a conqueror. 
He said that Austria-Hungary would demand no 
territory, that the step was merely a definitive 
measure against Servian machinations ; that Austria- 
Hungary felt herself obliged to exact guarantees for 
the future friendly behavior of Servia toward the 
monarchy; that he had no intention of bringing 
about a shifting of the balance of power in the 
Balkans. The Charge d' Affaires, who as yet had 
no instructions from St. Petersburg, took the 
explanations of the Minister ad referendum adding 
that he would immediately transmit them to 
Sazonof . J 

In a report of the same interview from the 

1 German White Paper, No. 3. 



76 The Evidence in the Case 

English Ambassador at Vienna to Sir Edward 
Grey, it is said : 

Russian Charge d' Affaires was received this 
morning by Minister for Foreign Affairs, and said 
to him, as his own personal view, that Austrian 
note was drawn up in a form rendering it impossible 
of acceptance as it stood, and that it was both 
unusual and peremptory in its terms. Minister 
of Foreign Affairs replied that Austrian Minister 
was under instructions to leave Belgrade unless 
Austrian demands were accepted integrally by 4 p.m. 
to-morrow. His Excellency added that Dual Mon- 
archy felt that its very existence was at stake; 
and that the step taken had caused great satis- 
faction throughout the country. He did not think 
that objections to what had been done could be 
raised by any power. 

It will be noted that in the report of the English 
Ambassador there is no suggestion of any dis- 
claimer of an intention to take Servian territory. 

In the Russian Orange Paper, we find no report 
from its representative at Vienna of any such in- 
terview and Austria has never produced any docu- 
ment or memorandum either of such an interview 
or of such a concession to Russia. It is probable 
that such a concession was made, as Germany 
contends, and if so, Russian diplomacy was far too 
keen to be led upon a false trail by this empty 

1 English White Papers, No. 7, 



The Peace Parleys 77 

promise and as the evidences multiplied that 
Austria would not consider either an extension 
of time or any modification of its terms and that 
Germany was acting in complete accord and co- 
operated with her Ally, the probability of war was 
unmistakable. 

Sazonof at once sent for the English and French 
Ambassadors, and the substance of the conference 
is embodied in the telegram from the British 
Ambassador at St. Petersburg to Sir Edward Grey, 
dated July 24th, which throws a strong light upon 
the double effort of Russia and France to preserve 
the peace and also as an obvious necessity to 
prepare for the more probable issue of war: 

Minister for Foreign Affairs said that Austria's 
conduct was both provocative and immoral; she 
would never have taken such action unless Germany 
had first been consulted ; some of her demands were 
quite impossible of acceptance. He hoped that his 
Majesty's Government would not fail to proclaim 
their solidarity with Russia and France. 

The French Ambassador gave me to understand 
that France would fulfill all the obligations entailed 
by her alliance with Russia, if necessity arose, be- 
sides supporting Russia strongly in any diplomatic 
negotiations. 

I said that I would telegraph a full report to you 
of what their Excellencies had just said to me. I 
could not, of course, speak in the name of his 



78 The Evidence in the Case 

Majesty's Government,- but personally I saw no 
reason to expect any declaration of solidarity from 
his Majesty's Government that would entail an 
unconditional engagement on their part to support 
Russia and France by force of arms. Direct British 
interests in Servia were nil, and a war on behalf of 
that country would never be sanctioned by British 
public opinion. To this M. Sazonof replied that 
we must not forget that the general European ques- 
tion was involved, the Servian question being but 
a part of the former, and that Great Britain could 
not afford to efface herself from the problems now 
at issue. 

In reply to these remarks I observed that I 
gathered from what he said that his Excellency was 
suggesting that Great Britain should join in making 
a communication to Austria to the effect that active 
intervention by her in the internal affairs of Servia 
could not be tolerated. But, supposing Austria 
nevertheless proceeded to embark on military 
measures against Servia in spite of our representa- 
tions, was it the intention of the Russian Govern- 
ment forthwith to declare war on Austria? 

M. Sazonof said that he himself thought that 
Russian mobilization would at any rate have to be 
carried out; but a council of ministers was being 
held this afternoon to consider the whole question. 
A further council would beheld, probably to-morrow, 
at which the Emperor would preside, when a deci- 
sion would be come to. . . . 

Had England then followed the sagacious sug- 
gestion of Sazonof, would war have been averted? 



The Peace Parleys 79 

Possibly, perhaps probably. Germany's princi- 
pal fear was the intervention of England. In view 
of its supremacy on the seas this was natural. 
It was England's intimation in the Moroccan 
crisis of 191 1, made in Lloyd George's Mansion 
House speech, which at that time induced Ger- 
many to reverse the engines. Might not the 
same intimation in 19 14 have had a like effect upon 
the mad counsels of Potsdam? The answer can 
only be a matter of conjecture. It depends largely 
upon how deep-seated the purpose of Germany 
may have been to provoke a European war at a 
time when Russia, France, or England were not 
fully prepared. 

It does not follow that if Sazonof was right, 
Sir Edward Grey was necessarily wrong in declin- 
ing to align England definitely with Russia and 
France at that stage. He was the servant of a 
democratic nation and could not ignore the public 
opinion of his country as freely as the Russian 
Foreign Minister. To take such a course, it 
would have been necessary for Grey to submit 
the matter to Parliament, and while with a 
large liberal majority his policy might have 
been endorsed, yet it would have been after 
such an acrimonious discussion and such vehe- 
ment protests that England would have stood 



80 The Evidence in the Case 

before the world "as a house divided against 
itself." 

Both Sazonof and Sir Edward Grey from their 
respective standpoints were right. Neither made 
a single false step in the great controversy. 

As a result of this interview, Russia, England, 
and France, after the request for time had been 
abruptly refused, next proceeded in the interests 
of peace to persuade Servia to make as conciliatory 
a reply to the impossible ultimatum as was possi- 
ble without a fatal compromise of her political in- 
dependence. 

While the lack of time prevented France and 
Russia from making any formal communication 
to Servia on the question, yet Sazonof had a 
conference with the Servian Minister and dis- 
cussed the wisdom of avoiding an attack on 
Belgrade by having the Servian forces with- 
drawn to the interior and then appealing to the 
Powers, and Russia thereupon made the broad 
and magnanimous suggestion that if Servia should 
appeal to the Powers, Russia would be quite ready 
to stand aside and leave the question in the hands of 
England, France, Germany, and Italy. 

This interview, as reported by the British Am- 
bassador at St. Petersburg to Sir Edward Grey, 
dated July 25th, is as follows: 



The Peace Parleys 81 

I saw the Minister for Foreign Affairs this morn- 
ing, and communicated to his Excellency the sub- 
stance of your telegram of to-day to Paris, and this 
afternoon, I discussed with him the communication 
which the French Ambassador suggested should be 
made to the Servian Government, as recorded in 
your telegram of yesterday to Belgrade. . . . 

The Minister for Foreign Affairs said that Servia 
was quite ready to do as you had suggested and to 
punish those proved to be guilty , but that no indepen- 
dent State could be expected to accept the political 
demands which had been put forward. The 
Minister for Foreign Affairs thought, from a conver- 
sation which he had with the Servian Minister 
yesterday, that in the event of the Austrians 
attacking Servia, the Servian Government would 
abandon Belgrade and withdraw their forces into 
the interior, while they would at the same time 
appeal to the Powers to help them. His Excellency 
was in favor of their making this appeal. He 
would like to see the question placed on an inter- 
national footing, as the obligations taken by Servia 
in 1908, to which reference is made in the Austrian 
ultimatum, were given not to Austria, but to the 
Powers. 

If Servia should appeal to the Powers, Russia 
would be quite ready to stand aside and leave the 
question in the hands of England, France, Germany, 
and Italy. It was possible, in his opinion, that 
Servia might propose to submit the question to 
arbitration. 

Pursuant to this policy of conciliation Sir Ed- 
ward Grey in direct communication with the 



82 The Evidence in the Case 

Servian Minister at London, Mr. Crackenthorpe, 
the British Ambassador at Belgrade, in direct 
communication with the Servian Foreign Ministry, 
and Sazonof in interviews with the Servian Minis- 
ter at St. Petersburg, all brought direct influence 
upon Servia to make a conciliatory reply. 

Thus Sir Edward Grey instructed Cracken- 
thorpe : 

Servia ought to promise that if it is proved that 
Servian officials, however subordinate they may be, 
were accomplices in the murder of the Archduke at 
Serajevo, she will give Austria the fullest satisfac- 
tion. She certainly ought to express concern and 
regret. For the rest, Servian Government must 
reply to Austrian demands as they consider best in 
Servian interests. 

It is impossible to say whether military action 
by Austria when time limit expires can be averted 
by anything but unconditional acceptance of her 
demands, but only chance appears to lie in avoiding 
an absolute refusal and replying favorably to as 
many points as the time limit allows. . . . 

I have urged upon the German Ambassador that 
Austria should not precipitate military action. 1 

In response to these suggestions, Mr. Cracken- 
thorpe communicated Sir Edward Grey's pacific 
suggestions to the Servian Minister and received 

1 English White Paper, No. 12. 



The Peace Parleys 83 

the following reply, as reported in Crackenthorpe's 
report to Sir Edward Grey, dated July 25th. 

The Council of Ministers is now drawing up their 
reply to the Austrian note. I am informed by the 
Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that it 
will be most conciliatory and will meet the Austrian 
demands in as large a measure as is possible. . . . 

The Servian Government consider that, unless the 
Austrian Government want war at any cost, they 
cannot but be content with the full satisfaction 
offered in the Servian reply. J 

These pacific suggestions to Servia met with 
complete success, and as a result that country on 
July 25th, and before the expiration of the ultima- 
tum, made a reply to Austria which astonished the 
world with its spirit of conciliation and for a short 
time gave rise to optimistic hopes of peace. 

At some sacrifice of its self-respect as a sovereign 
State, it accepted substantially the demands of 
Austria, with a few minor reservations, which it 
expressed its willingness to refer either to arbitra- 
tion at The Hague Tribunal or to a conference of 
the Powers. 2 

Neither Germany nor Austria seriously con- 
tended that the reply was not on its face a 
substantial acquiescence in the extreme Austrian 

1 English White Paper, No. 21. 

2 English White Paper, No. 39. 



84 The Evidence in the Case 

demands. They contented themselves with im- 
peaching the sincerity of the assurances, calling 
the concessions " shams." Unless Austria, in 
asking assurances from Servia, were content to 
accept them as made in good faith and allow their 
sincerity to be determined by future deeds, why 
should the ultimatum, calling for such assurances, 
have been made? If Germany and Austria had 
accepted Servia's reply as sufficient, and Servia 
had subsequently failed to fulfill its promises 
in the utmost good faith, there would have 
been little sympathy for Servia, and no general 
war. Russia and England pledged their influ- 
ence to compel Servia, if necessary, to meet fully 
any reasonable demand of Austria. The prin- 
cipal outstanding question, which Servia agreed 
to arbitrate or leave to the Powers, was the 
participation of Austrian officials in the Servian 
courts. This did not present a difficult problem. 
Austria's professed desire for an impartial in- 
vestigation could have been easily attained by 
having the Powers appoint a commission of neutral 
jurists to make such investigation. 

In any event, Austria could have accepted the 
very substantial concessions of Servia and without 
prejudice to its rights proceeded to The Hague 
Tribunal or to a concert of the Powers as to the 



The Peace Parleys 85 

few and comparatively simple open points. When 
one recalls the infinite treasure of property and life, 
which would thus have been saved the world, had 
Germany and Austria accepted this reasonable and 
pacific course, one can only exclaim, "But oh, the 
pity of it!" 

It is significant that while the entire official 
German press gave ample space to the Austrian 
ultimatum and rejoiced in Austria's energetic at- 
titude, it withheld from the German people any 
adequate information as to the conciliatory nature 
of the Servian reply, for the Russian Charge at 
Berlin telegraphed to Sazonof : 

The Wolff Bureau has not published the text of 
the Servian response which was communicated to 
it. Up to this moment this note has not appeared 
in extenso in any of local journals, which ac- 
cording to all the evidence do not wish to give it a 
place in their columns, understanding the calming 
effect which this publication would produce upon 
the German readers. 1 

Instead of getting the truth, the Berlin populace 
proceeded to make riotous demonstrations against 
the Russian and Servian Embassies. 

The time limit on the ultimatum expired on 
July the 25th at six o'clock in the evening. 

1 Russian Orange Paper, No. 46. 



86 The Evidence in the Case 

There is no more significant and at the same 
time discreditable feature of an infinitely discredit- 
able chapter in history than that the Austrian 
Government, without giving the Servian answer the 
consideration even of a single hour, immediately 
severed all diplomatic intercourse with Belgrade 
and at 6.30 p.m. the Minister of Austria 

informed the Servian Government by note that, not 
having received within the delay fixed a satisfactory 
response, he is leaving Belgrade with the whole 
personnel of the legation. 

On the same night Austria ordered the mobil- 
ization of a considerable part of its army. 

Notwithstanding these rebuffs, England, France, 
and Russia continued to labor for peace, and made 
further pacific suggestions, all of which fell upon 
deaf ears. 

On July 25th, Sir Edward Grey proposed that 
the four Powers (England, France, Italy, and 
Germany) should unite 

in asking the Austrian and Russian Governments 
not to cross the frontier and to give time for the four 
Powers, acting at Vienna and St. Petersburg, to 
try and arrange matters. If Germany will adopt 
this view I feel strongly that France and ourselves 
should act upon it. Italy would no doubt gladly 
cooperate. 1 

1 English White Paper, Nos. 24 and 25. 



The Peace Parleys 87 

To this reasonable request the German Chan- 
cellor replied : 

The distinction made by Sir Edward Grey be- 
tween the Austro-Servian and Austro-Russian con- 
flict is quite correct. We wish as little as England 
to mix in the first, and, first and last, we take the 
ground that this question must be localized by the 
abstention of all the Powers from intervention in it. 
It is therefore our earnest hope that Russia will 
refrain from any active intervention, conscious of 
her responsibility and of the seriousness of the 
situation. If an Austro-Russian dispute should 
arise, we are ready, with the reservation of our 
known duties as Allies, to cooperate with the other 
great Powers in mediation between Russia and 
Austria. x 

This distinction is hard to grasp. It attempts 
to measure the difference between tweedledum 
and tweedledee. Russia's current difference with 
Austria concerned the attempt of the latter to 
crush Servia without interference. Russia claimed 
such right of intervention. Germany would not 
interfere in the former matter, but would abstractly 
but not concretely mediate between Russia and 
Austria in the latter. Mediate about what? To 
refuse to mediate over the Servian question was to 
refuse to mediate at all. For all practical purposes 
the two things were indistinguishable. 

1 German White Paper, Exhibit 13. 



88 The Evidence in the Case 

All that Germany did on July 25th, so far as the 
record discloses, was to "pass on" England's and 
Russia's requests for more time, but subsequent 
events indicate that it was "passed on" without 
any indorsement, for is it credible that Austria 
would have ignored its ally's request for more 
time if it had ever been made? Here again we 
note with disappointment the absence from the 
record of Germany's message to Austria, "passing 
on" the reasonable request for an extension of 
time. The result indicates that the request re- 
ceived, if any endorsement, the "faint praise" 
which is said to "damn." 

Was ever the peace of the world shattered upon 
so slight a pretext? A little time, a few days, 
even a few hours, might have sufficed to preserve 
the world from present horrors, but no time 
could be granted. A snap judgment was to be 
taken by these pettifogging diplomats. The peace 
of the world was to be torpedoed by submarine 
diplomacy. The Austrian Government could wait 
nearly three months to try the assassin, who ad- 
mittedly slew the Austrian Archduke, but could not 
wait even a few hours before condemning Servia 
to political death. It could not grant Russia any 
time to consider a matter gravely affecting its 
interests, even if the peace of Europe and the 



The Peace Parleys 89 

happiness of the world depended on it. It would 
be difficult to find in recorded history a greater 
discourtesy to a friendly Power, for Austria was 
not at war with Russia. 

Defeated in their effort to get an extension of 
time, England, France, and Russia made further 
attempts to preserve peace by temporarily arrest- 
ing military proceedings until further efforts to- 
ward conciliation could be made. Sir Edward Grey 
proposed to Germany, France, Russia, and Italy 
that they should unite in asking Austria and Servia 
not to cross the frontier "until we had had time 
to try and arrange matters between them," but 
the German Ambassador read Sir Edward Grey 
a telegram that he had received from the German 
Foreign Office saying 

that his Government had not known beforehand, 
and had had no more than other Powers to do with 
the stiff terms of the Austrian note to Servia, but 
that once she had launched that note, Austria could 
not draw back. Prince Lichnowsky said, however, 
that if what I contemplated was mediation be- 
tween Austria and Russia, Austria might be able 
with dignity to accept it. He expressed himself as 
personally favorable to this suggestion. 

It will be noted that Germany thus gave to 
England, as it had already given to Russia and 



90 The Evidence in the Case 

France in the most unequivocal terms, a disclaimer 
of any responsibility for the Austrian ultimatum, 
but we have already seen that when the German 
Foreign Office prepared its statement for the Ger- 
man nation, which was circulated in the Reichs- 
tag on August 4th, Germany confessed the 
insincerity of these assurances by admitting that 
before the ultimatum was issued the Austrian 
Government had advised the German Foreign 
Office of its intentions and asked its opinion and 
that 

we were able to assure our ally most heartily of our 
agreement with her view of the situation and to 
assure her that any action that she might consider 
it necessary to take . . . would receive our ap- 
proval. 

Here again it is to be noted that the telegram, 
which the German Foreign Office sent to Prince 
Lichnowsky, and which that diplomat simply read 
to Sir Edward Grey, is not set forth in the exhibits 
to the German White Paper. 

As we have seen, Germany never, so far as the 
record discloses, sought in any way to influence 
Austria to make this or any concession until after 
the Kaiser's return from Norway and then only, 
if we accept the assurances of its Foreign Office 
which are not supported by official documents. 



The Peace Parleys 91 

Its attitude was shown by the declaration of its 
Ambassador at Paris to the French Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, which, while again disclaiming that 
Germany had countenanced the Austrian ulti- 
matum, yet added that Germany " approved" its 
point of view, 

and that certainly, the arrow once sent, Germany 
could not allow herself to be guided except by her 
duty as ally. x 

This seemed to be the fatal error of Germany, 
that its duties to civilization were so slight that 
it should support its ally, Austria, whether the 
latter were right or wrong. Such was its policy, 
and it carried it out with fatal consistency. To 
support its ally in actual war without respect to 
the justice of the quarrel may be defensible, but 
to support it in times of peace in an iniquitous de- 
mand and a policy of gross discourtesy to friendly 
States offends every sense of international morality. 

On the following day Russia proposed to Austria 
that they should enter into an exchange of private 
views, with the object of an alteration in common 
of some clauses of the Austrian ultimatum. To 
this Austria never even replied. 

The Russian Minister communicated this sug- 

1 Russian Orange Paper, No. 19. 



92 The Evidence in the Case 

gestion to the German Minister for Foreign Affairs 
and expressed the hope that he would "find it 
possible to advise Vienna to meet our proposal," 
but this did not accord with German policy, for 
on that day the German Ambassador in Paris 
called upon the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
and submitted the following formal declaration : 

1 ' Austria has declared to Russia that she does not 
seek territorial acquisitions, and that she does not 
threaten the integrity of Servia. Her only object 
is to insure her own tranquillity. Consequently it 
rests with Russia to avoid war. Germany feels 
herself at one with France in her keen desire to pre- 
serve the peace, and strongly hopes that France will 
use her influence at St. Petersburg in the direction 
of moderation." The [French] Minister observed that 
Germany could on her side take similar steps at Vienna, 
especially in view of the conciliatory spirit which 
Servia had shown. The Ambassador answered that 
that was not possible, in view of the resolution taken 
not to interfere in the Austro-Servian conflict. There- 
upon the Minister asked if the four Powers — Eng- 
land, Germany, Italy, and France — were not able 
to take steps at St. Petersburg and Vienna, since 
the affair reduced itself in essentials to a conflict 
between Russia and Austria. The Ambassador 
pleaded the absence of instructions. Finally, the 
Minister refused to adhere to the German proposal. J 

This significant interview states the consistent 

1 Russian Orange Paper, No. 28. 



The Peace Parleys 93 

attitude of Germany. The burden is put upon 
France to induce its ally to desist from any inter- 
vention and thus give Austria a free hand, while 
Germany emphatically declines to promote the 
same pacific object by suggesting to Austria a 
more conciliatory course. 

On the same day England asked France, Italy, 
and Germany to meet in London for an immediate 
conference to preserve the peace of Europe, and 
to this fruitful suggestion, which might have 
saved that peace, the German Secretary of State, 
after conferring with the British Ambassador at 
Berlin, replied that the conference 

would practically amount to a court of arbitration 
and could not, in his opinion, be called together 
except at the request of Austria and Russia. He 
could not, therefore, fall in with your [Sir Edward 
Grey's] suggestion, desirous though he was to co- 
operate for the maintenance of peace. I [Sir E. 
Goschen] said I was sure that your idea had nothing 
to do with arbitration, but meant that representa- 
tives of the four nations not directly interested 
should discuss and suggest means for avoiding a 
dangerous situation. He [Von Jagow] maintained, 
however, that such a conference as you proposed 
was not practicable. 1 

Germany's refusal to have Servia's case sub- 
1 English White Paper, No. 43. 



94 The Evidence in the Case 

mitted to the Powers even for their consideration 
is the more striking when it is recalled that on the 
same day the German Ambassador at London 
quoted the German Secretary of State as saying 

that there were some things in the Austrian note 
that Servia could hardly be expected to accept, 

thus recognizing that Austria's ultimatum was, 
at least in part, unjust. Sir Edward Grey then 
called the German Ambassador's attention to the 
fact that if Austria refused the conciliatory reply 
of Servia and marched into that country 

it meant that she was determined to crush Servia 
at all costs, being reckless of the consequences that 
might be involved. 

He added that the Servian reply 

should at least be treated as a basis for discussion 
and pause, 

and asked that the German Government should 
urge this at Vienna but, as we have already seen, 
the German Secretary of State had already replied 
that such a conference "was not practicable, " and 
that it "would practically amount to a court of 
arbitration," and could not, in his opinion, be 
called together "except at the request of Austria 
and Russia." 1 

1 English White Paper, No. 46. 



The Peace Parleys 95 

That this was a mere evasion is perfectly plain. 
Germany already knew that Austria would not ask 
for such a conference, for Austria had already re- 
fused Russia's request for an extension of time and 
had actually commenced its military operations. 

Germany's attitude is again clearly indicated by 
the letter of the Russian Minister in Germany to 
the Russian Foreign Office in which he states that 
on July 27 th he called at the German Foreign Office 
and asked it, 

to urge upon Vienna in a more pressing fashion to 
take up this line of conciliation. Von Jagow replied 
that he could not advise Austria to yield. 1 

Why not? Russia and its allies had advised 
Servia to yield and Servia had conceded nearly 
every claim. Why could not the German Foreign 
Office advise Vienna to meet conciliation by con- 
ciliation, if its desire for peace were sincere? 

Before this interview took place, the French 
Ambassador had called at the German Foreign 
Office on a similar errand and urged the English 
suggestion that action should at once be taken 
by England, Germany, Russia, and France at St. 
Petersburg and Vienna, to the effect that Austria 
and Servia 

1 Russian Orange Paper •, No. 38. 



96 The Evidence in the Case 

should abstain from any act which might aggravate 
the situation at the present hour. 

By this was meant that there should be, pending 
further parleys, no invasion of Servia by Austria 
and none of Austria by Russia. To this the 
German Foreign Minister opposed a categorical 
refusal. 

On the same day the Russian Ambassador at 
Vienna had "a long and earnest ■ conversation" 
with the Austrian Under-Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs. He expressed the earnest hope 
that 

something would be done before Servia was actually 
invaded. Baron Macchio replied that this would 
now be difficult, as a skirmish had already taken 
place on the Danube, in which the Servians had 
been aggressors. 

The Russian Ambassador then said that his 
country would do all it could to keep the Servians 
quiet, "and even to fall back before an Austrian 
advance in order to gain time. " 

He urged that the Austrian Ambassador at St. 
Petersburg should be furnished with full powers to 
continue discussions with the Russian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, 



The Peace Parleys 97 

who was very willing to advise Servia to yield all 
that could be fairly asked of her as an independent 
Power. 

The only reply to this reasonable suggestion was 
that it would be submitted to the Minister for 
Foreign Affairs. 1 

On the same day the German Ambassador at 
Paris called upon the French Foreign Office and 
"strongly insisted on the exclusion of all possibility 
of mediation or a conference 1 '' 2 ; and yet contem- 
poraneously the Imperial German Chancellor was 
advising London that he had 

started the efforts towards mediation in Vienna, 
immediately in the way desired by Sir Edward Grey, 
and had further communicated to the Austrian 
Foreign Minister the wish of the Russian Foreign 
Minister for a direct talk in Vienna. 

What hypocrisy! In the formal German de- 
fense, the German Foreign Office, after stating its 
conviction 

that an act of mediation could not take into con- 
sideration the Austro-Servian conflict, which was 
purely an Austro-Hungarian affair, 

claimed that Germany had transmitted Sir 

1 English White Paper, No. 56. 
3 Russian Orange Paper, No. 34. 

7 



98 The Evidence in the Case 

Edward Grey's further suggestion to Vienna, in 
which Austro- Hungary was urged 

either to agree to accept the Servian answer as 
sufficient or to look upon it as a basis for further 
conversations ; 

but the Austro- Hungarian Government — playing 
the role of the wicked partner of the combination 
— "in full appreciation of our mediatory activity" 
(so says the German White Paper with sardonic 
humor), replied to this proposition that, coming 
after the opening of hostilities, "it was too 
late.' 1 

Can it be fairly questioned that if Germany had 
done something more than merely "transmit" 
these wise and pacific suggestions, Austria would 
have complied with the suggestions of its powerful 
ally or that Austria would have suspended its 
military operations if Germany had given any 
intimation of such a wish? 

On the following day, July 28th, the door was 
further closed on any possibility of compromise, 
when the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs 

said, quietly, but firmly, that no discussion could be 
accepted on the basis of the Servian note; that war 
would be declared to-day, and that the well-known 
pacific character of the Emperor, as well as, he 
might add, his own, might be accepted as a guar- 



The Peace Parleys 99 

antee that the war was both just and inevitable; 
that this was a matter that must be settled directly 
between the two parties immediately concerned. 

To this arrogant and unreasonable contention 
that Europe must accept the guarantee of the 
Austrian Foreign Minister as to the righteousness 
of Austria's quarrel, the British Ambassador 
suggested "the larger aspect of the question," 
namely, the peace of Europe, and to this "larger 
aspect," which should have given any reasonable 
official some ground for pause, the Austrian Foreign 
Minister replied that he 

had it also in mind, but thought that Russia ought 
not to oppose operations like those impending, 
which did not aim at territorial aggrandizement, 
and which could no longer be postponed. r 

The private conversations between Russia and 
Austria having thus failed, Russia returned to the 
proposition of a European conference to preserve 
its peace. Its Ambassador in Vienna on July 28th 
had a further conference with Berchtold and again 
earnestly pleaded for peace on the basis of friendly 
relations not only between Austria and Servia but 
between Austria and Russia. The conversation in 
the light of present developments is so significant 
that it bears quotation in extenso: 

1 English White Paper, No. 62. 



ioo The Evidence in the Case 

I pointed out to him in the most friendly terms 
how much it was desirable to find a solution which, 
while consolidating the good relations between Aus- 
tria-Hungary and Russia, should give to the Aus- 
tro-Hungarian Monarchy serious guarantees for its 
future relations with Servia. 

I called the attention of Count Berchtold to all 
the dangers to the peace of Europe which would be 
brought about by an armed conflict between Austria- 
Hungary and Servia. 

Count Berchtold replied that he understood 
perfectly well the seriousness of the situation and the 
advantages of a frank explanation with the Cabinet 
of St. Petersburg. He told me that on the other hand 
the Austro-Hungarian Government, which had only 
reluctantly decided upon the energetic measures which 
it had taken against Servia, could now neither with- 
draw nor enter upon any discussion of the terms of the 
Austro-Hungarian note. 

Count Berchtold added that the crisis had become 
so acute and that public opinion had been excited 
to such a degree that the Government, even if it 
desired, could no longer consent to it, all the less, 
he said to me, because the very reply of Servia gave 
proof of the lack of sincerity in its promises for the 
future. 

On the same day, July 28th, the German Im- 
perial Chancellor sent for the English Ambassador 
and excused his failure to accept the proposed 
conference of the neutral Powers, on the ground 
that he did not think it would be effective, 



The Peace Parleys 101 

because such a conference would, in his opinion, 
have the appearance of an "Areopagus" consisting 
of two Powers of each group sitting in judgment 
upon the two remaining Powers. 

After engaging in this narrow and insincere 
quibble, and, being reminded of Servia's con- 
ciliatory reply, 

his Excellency said that he did not wish to discuss 
the Servian note, but that Austria's standpoint, 
and in this he agreed, was that her quarrel with 
Servia was a purely Austrian concern, with which 
Russia had nothing to do. 1 

At this stage of the controversy it will be noted 
that every proposal to preserve peace had come 
from the Triple Entente and that every such pro- 
posal had met with an uncompromising negative 
from Austria, and either that or obstructive 
quibbles from Germany. 

1 English White Paper, No. 71. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE ATTITUDE OF FRANCE 

Before proceeding to record the second and 
final stage in the peace parleys, in which the Ger- 
man Kaiser became the protagonist, it is desirable 
to interpolate the additional data, which the French 
Yellow Book has given to the world since the pre- 
ceding chapter was written and the first editions 
of this book were printed. This can be done with 
little sacrifice to the chronological sequence of this 
narrative. 

The evidence of the Yellow Book is fuller in 
scope and greater in detail than the other govern- 
mental publications, and while largely cumulative in 
its character, it serves to bring into a sharper light 
certain phases of this extraordinary controversy. 

It has been prepared with great care by M. 
Jules Cambon, who was the French Ambas- 
sador at Berlin during the controversy, and 
MM. de Margerie and Berthelot, experienced 
and influential diplomats in the French Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs. It consists of 160 documents, 

102 



The Attitude of France 103 

classified into seven chapters, each dealing with 
different periods of time in the great controversy. 
The delay in its presentation is somewhat com- 
pensated by the exceptional fullness of the data 
which is thus submitted to the scrutiny of a 
candid world. 

The French Yellow Book confirms the impres- 
sion that France was most fortunate in having 
entrusted its interests at the difficult post of 
Berlin in this great crisis to so distinguished and 
experienced a diplomat as M. Jules Cambon. 

Throughout the whole controversy the impartial 
reader is deeply impressed with the fact, which the 
more candid apologists for Germany are themselves 
disposed to admit, that Germany's chief weakness 
lay in its incapable diplomatic representatives. 
An interesting subject for conjecture suggests 
itself as to what would have happened if Prince 
Bismarck had been at the helm at this critical 
juncture. His guiding principles of statecraft 
with reference to foreign relations were to isolate 
the enemy, make him the apparent aggressor, 
and then crush him as effectually and speedily as 
possible. He never would have initiated this war. 
His nature was that of the fox as well as the lion. 

In the years that have succeeded his dis- 
missal, a certain dry rot, due to the tendency of 



104 The Evidence in the Case 

the Prussian Government to distribute its diplo- 
matic offices among highborn but incompetent 
Junkers, — une petite gentilhommerie pauvre et 
stupide, as Bismarck once described them — had 
affected the efficiency of German diplomacy. 
Feebly attempting to walk in the steps of the Iron 
Chancellor, they wittingly or unwittingly re- 
versed Bismarck's policy by almost isolating 
Germany, consolidating its enemies, and then 
proceeding to attack them simultaneously. This 
may have been magnificent in courage, but it was 
not wise statecraft. The might of the German 
sabre was supposed to offset these blundering dis- 
ciples of Machiavelli. 

Russia, England, and France were more fortu- 
nate and of their representatives few, if any, shone 
with greater intellectual distinction or moral 
courage than M. Jules Cambon. This distin- 
guished diplomat had had exceptional experience 
in representing his country in various capitals of 
the world, and the author, who enjoyed the honor 
of his acquaintance, when he was accredited to 
Washington, already knew, what the documents 
in the French Yellow Book so clearly reveal, that 
Cambon was a diplomat of great intellectual 
ability. With acute sagacity he grasped the sig- 
nificance of the fateful events, in which he was a 



The Attitude of France 105 

participant. To his calm and well-poised in- 
tellectuality he added a moral force, resulting 
from the clear integrity of his purpose and the 
broad humanity of his aims. 

On more than one occasion he spoke "in the 
name of humanity," and in his constant attempt 
to convince the German Foreign Office as to its 
clear duty to civilization to preserve the peace 
of the world, he became the representative, not 
merely of France, but of civilization itself. 

In this great diplomatic controversy, one of 
the greatest in the history of the world, the three 
representatives, who stand out with the greatest 
intellectual and moral distinction, are Sazonof, 
Grey, and Cambon. 

The first displayed the greatest sagacity in 
divining from the very outset the real purposes 
of Germany and Austria and in checkmating the 
diplomatic moves, which sought to make Russia 
apparently the aggressor. 

Sir Edward Grey's chief merit lay in his un- 
wearying but ineffectual efforts to bring about a 
peaceful solution of the problem and also in the 
absolute candor— so unusual in diplomacy— with 
which he dealt on the one hand with the efforts 
of Russia and France to align England on their 
side at the beginning of the quarrel, and on the 



106 The Evidence in the Case 

other, to continue friendly negotiations with 
Germany and Austria, without in any respect 
unfairly misleading them as to England's possible 
ultimate action. 

The French Ambassador will justly receive the 
approval of posterity for the high courage and 
moral earnestness with which he pressed upon 
the German Foreign Office the inevitable conse- 
quences of its acts. 

The first chapter of the French Yellow Book 
consists largely of communications written from 
Berlin by M. Jules Cambon in the year 19 13. 
Its most interesting document is his report 
from Berlin under date November 22, 1913, as 
to a conversation between the Kaiser and the 
King of Belgium, with reference to a change in the 
pacific attitude, which Cambon had previously 
imputed to the Kaiser. 

To the world at large this statement would be 
more convincing if the source of the information 
had been disclosed. Those who know M. Jules 
Cambon, however, will have a reasonable confi- 
dence that when he states that he received the 
record of this conversation "from an absolutely 
sure source," more than usual credence can be 
given to the statement. Reading between the 
lines, the implication is not unreasonable that the 



The Attitude of France 107 

source of Cambon's authority was King Albert 
himself, but this rests only on a plausible con- 
jecture. 

The fact that so trained an observer as the 
French Ambassador had seen in the Kaiser a 
marked change as early as 1913 is significant, 
and history may justify Cambon in his shrewd 
conjecture that "the impatience of the soldier s," 
meaning thereby the German General Staff, and 
the growing popularity of his chauvinistic son, 
the Crown Prince, had appreciably modified the 
pacific attitude of the Kaiser, which had served 
the cause of peace so well in the Moroccan crisis. 
Cambon's recital of the incident in question, 
written on November 22, 19 13, justifies quotation 
in extenso. 

I have received from an absolutely sure source a 
record of a conversation which is reported between 
the Emperor and the King of the Belgians, in the 
presence of the Chief of the General Staff, General 
von Moltke, a fortnight ago — a conversation which 
would appear greatly to have struck King Albert. 
I am in no way surprised by the impression created, 
which corresponds with that made on me some time 
ago . Hostility against us is becoming more marked, 
and the Emperor has ceased to be a partisan of 
peace. The German Emperor's interlocutor thought 
up to the present, as did everybody, that William II., 



108 The Evidence in the Case 

whose personal influence has been exerted in 
many critical circumstances in favor of the 
maintenance of peace, was still in the same state 
of mind. This time, it appears, he found him com- 
pletely changed. The German Emperor is no 
longer in his eyes the champion of peace against 
the bellicose tendencies of certain German parties. 
William II. has been brought to think that war 
with France is inevitable, and that it will have 
to come one day or the other. The Emperor, 
it need hardly be said, believes in the crushing 
superiority of the German army and in its assured 
success. 

General von Moltke spoke in exactly the same 
sense as his sovereign. He also declared that war 
was necessary and inevitable, but he showed himself 
still more certain of success. "For," said he to 
the King, "this time we must put an end to it" 
(cette jois il jaut en finir), "and your Majesty can 
hardly doubt the irresistible enthusiasm which 
on that day will carry away the whole German 
people." 

The King of the Belgians protested that to inter- 
pret the intentions of the French Government in 
this manner was to travesty them, and to allow 
oneself to be misled as to the feelings of the French 
nation by the manifestations of a few hotheads, or 
of conscienceless intriguers. 

The Emperor and his Chief of General Staff none 
the less persisted in their point of view. 

During this conversation the Emperor, moreover, 
appeared overwrought, and irritable. As the years 
begin to weigh upon William II. the family tradi- 
tions, the retrograde feelings of the Court, and, above 



The Attitude of France 109 

all, the impatience of the soldiers, are gaming more 
ascendency over his mind. Perhaps he may feel 
I know not what kind of jealousy of the popularity 
acquired by his son, who flatters the passions of the 
Pan-Germans, and perhaps he may find that the 
position of the Empire in the world is not commen- 
surate with its power. Perhaps, also, the reply of 
France to the last increase in the German army, the 
object of which was to place Germanic superiority 
beyond question, may count for something in these 
bitternesses, for whatever one may say it is felt 
here that the Germans cannot do much more. One 
may ask what lay behind the conversation. The 
Emperor and his Chief of General Staff may have 
intended to impress the King of the Belgians, and 
to lead him not to resist in case a conflict with us 
should arise \ . . . 

This picture of the Kaiser is interesting and 
significant. 

Germany's loss of prestige in the Moroccan 
controversy, due to the Kaiser's unwillingness 
to precipitate a war at that time and his some- 
what diminished popularity with his people, not 
only accentuated the desire of his military cama- 
rilla to find another pretext for a war, but may 
have modified the Kaiser's resistance to this belli- 
cose policy. Until that time he had been quite 
content to play the part of Caesar. It may be 
questioned whether he had previously a real desire 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 6. 



no The Evidence in the Case 

to be a Caesar. To describe himself meta- 
phorically as "clad in shining armor" and to 
shake the "mailed fist" was his constant pose. 
"And so he played his part." As long as the 
world was content to take this imperial fustian 
in a Pickwickian sense, the imperial impresario 
found the same enjoyment as when he staged 
Sardanapalus on the boards of the Berlin 
Theater. 

The Kaiser was destined to stage a greater 
spectacle than the burning of a Babylonian pal- 
ace. His crowning achievement was to apply the 
torch to civilization itself. 

Prior to 19 13 neither his wishes nor plans car- 
ried him further than the congenial art of imperial 
posing. Behind his natural preference for peace 
was ever the lurking fear that a disastrous war 
might cost him his throne. The experience of 
Napoleon the Third was quite too recent to be 
ignored. 

In the Moroccan controversy, the unwillingness 
of France to assent to all demands and the resolute 
purpose of England to support its ally, presented 
a crisis, which could not be met with rhetorical 
phrases, and the Kaiser found himself confronted 
with a situation, in which a very considerable 
number of thoughtful and influential Germans 



The Attitude of France in 

favored an immediate appeal to arms, and as to 
which only his word was wanted to precipitate 
hostilities in 191 1. 

The Kaiser at that time failed to meet the 
expectations of those who had expected a more 
warlike attitude from the knight "clad in shining 
armor," and the expression " William the Peace- 
ful ' ' was bandied about with increasing contempt 
by the war party in Germany, whose passions the 
Crown Prince — not unwilling to push his royal 
father prematurely from the pedestal of popular- 
ity — was assiduously fanning. 

While the fact cannot yet be regarded as estab- 
lished, yet the writer believes that the future may 
indubitably show that the Kaiser did have full 
knowledge of the Austrian ultimatum in advance 
of its issuance and gave his consent to the policy 
of that coup in the hope that it would somewhat 
restore his diminished prestige. He probably 
followed this policy in the confident expectation 
that Russia would yield, as it had yielded in 1908 
in the Bosnian incident, and when he discovered 
in Norway that Russia, while willing to maintain 
peace upon any reasonable terms, was not disposed 
to surrender all its legitimate interests in the Ser- 
vian question, he, as will be more fully narrated 
in the next chapter, hurried back to Berlin and for 



ii2 The Evidence in the Case 

a time attempted to reverse the policy and bring 
about a peaceful adjustment. 

Unfortunately this attempt came too late. His 
military camarilla had determined upon war. 
Preparations were then being feverishly made, 
and the German and Austrian chancelleries were 
steadily and deliberately shutting the door upon 
any possibility of peace. 

To withdraw under these circumstances from 
an untenable position meant a substantial im- 
pairment of his already diminished prestige. A 
Washington would have saved the situation, but 
the Kaiser was not a Washington. 

Another most illuminating feature of this chap- 
ter of the Yellow Book is a report from the French 
Embassy in Berlin to its Foreign Office on the 
public opinion of Germany in the summer of 1913, 
as disclosed by the reports of the French consular 
representatives in Germany. It gives an extra- 
ordinary analysis of conditions in Germany prior 
to the war, and it describes in great fullness the 
many causes which were contributory to the crea- 
tion of a powerful war party in Germany. As it 
is not in strictness a part of the diplomatic record, 
it is not embodied in the text ot this book, but its 
value as an acute analysis of conditions in Germany 
— made before the passions of the war had clouded 



The Attitude of France 113 

the judgment — will repay the reader's careful 
consideration. 

The second chapter of the French Yellow Book 
deals with the events which took place between 
the murder of the Archduke and the Austrian 
ultimatum and presents new and cumulative 
evidence of substantial value. 

The French Consul General at Budapest, in 
a report to his Foreign Office under date July 
11, 1 914, after showing that the Hungarian 
Premier, Count Tisza, had refused to dis- 
close, even to the Hungarian Chamber, the 
results of the judicial inquiry into the Serajevo 
murder and the decision taken by the Austrian 
Cabinet, proceeds to show how the suppression 
of the news in Austria was a part of the scheme 
to make the ultimatum to Servia so abrupt and 
speedy that no course would be open to Servia 
and Europe other than an immediate and uncon- 
ditional surrender. 

Everything is for peace in the newspapers, but the 
mass of the public believes in war and fears it. . . . 
The Government, whether it be seriously desirous 
of peace, or whether it be preparing a coup, is now 
doing everything it can to allay this anxiety. That 
is why the tone of the Government newspapers has 
been lowered first, by one note and then by two, 
until now it has become almost optimistic. But 
8 , 



H4 The Evidence in the Case 

the Government newspapers themselves have care- 
fully spread the alarm. Their optimism to order 
is really without an echo. The nervousness of the 
Bourse, a barometer one cannot neglect, is a sure 
proof of that. Stocks, without exception, have 
fallen to improbably low prices. The Hungarian 
four per cent, was yesterday quoted at 79.95, a 
price which has never been quoted since the first 
issue. 1 

Simultaneously a very different note was sound- 
ed by the organ of the military party in Vienna. 
The Militarische Rundschau, a few days before the 
ultimatum to Servia, said: 

"The moment is still favorable for us. If we do 
not decide upon war, the war we shall have to 
make in two or three years at the latest will be 
begun in circumstances much less propitious; now 
the initiative belongs to us. Russia is not ready, 
the moral factors are for us, might as well as right. 
Since some day we shall have to accept the struggle, 
let us provoke it at once." 2 

Before the Austrian ultimatum was issued there 
had been some preliminary informal negotiations 
between Austria and Servia and the latter had 
expressed its willingness to give to Austria the 
most ample reparation "provided that she did not 
demand judiciary cooperation,' ' and the Servian 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 11. * Ibid., No. 12. 



The Attitude of France 115 

Minister at Berlin warned "the German Govern- 
ment that it would be dangerous to endeavor by 
this inquiry {i. e., by the participation of Austrian 
officials in the courts of Servia) to damage the 
prestige of Servia." 1 

It thus appears that Austria and Germany had 
warning in advance of the issuance of the ulti- 
matum that if this humiliating demand were 
included it would meet with refusal. Their inten- 
tion to precipitate this war or impose their will 
upon Europe may therefore be measured by the 
fact that, with full knowledge that that particular 
demand would not be accepted, it was made a 
leading feature of the ultimatum, and finally 
became the principal outstanding difference after 
Servia had accepted substantially all the other 
demands of Austria. This was reported by Cam- 
bon to his Foreign Office two days before the 
ultimatum was issued and at that time Germany 
was fully advised as to the one demand, which 
Servia could not in justice to its sovereignty accept. 
In the same letter, Cambon advises his Foreign 
Office that Germany had already issued the "pre- 
liminary warning of mobilization, which places 
Germany in a sort of garde-a-vous during periods 
of tension." 2 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 15. 2 Ibid., No. 15. 



n6 The Evidence in the Case 

A further corroboration of Germany's knowledge 
of the Austrian ultimatum before its issuance is 
found in a report of the French Minister at Mu- 
nich to the French Foreign Office, written on the 
day when the Austrian ultimatum was issued, 
and a full day before it reached any capital except 
Berlin and Belgrade. He writes : 

The Bavarian Press appears to believe that a 
peaceful solution of the Austro-Servian incident is 
not only possible but even probable. Official circles, 
on the contrary, for some time past, have displayed 
with more or less sincerity positive pessimism. 

The Prime Minister notably said to me to-day 
that the Austrian note, of which he had cognizance, 
was in his opinion drawn up in terms acceptable to 
Servia, but that the present situation appeared to him 
none the less to be very grave. r 

As it is unlikely that the Austrian Govern- 
ment would have dealt directly with the Bavarian 
Government without similar communications to 
the German Foreign Office, it follows as a strong 
probability that the German Foreign Office and 
probably each of the constituent States of Ger- 
many knew on July the 23d that Austria in- 
tended to demand that which Servia had previously 
indicated its unalterable determination to refuse. 
Under these circumstances the repeated and in- 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 21. 



The Attitude of France 117 

sistent assurances that the German Foreign Office 
gave to England, France, and Russia that it "had 
no knowledge of the text of the Austrian note before 
it was handed in and had not exercised any influ- 
ence on its contents' 1 presents a policy of deception 
unworthy of a great nation or of the twentieth 
century. 

It regarded this policy of submarine diplomacy 
as necessary, not only to throw the other nations off 
their guard while Germany was arming, but also 
to support its contention that the quarrel between 
Servia and Austria was a local quarrel. If it 
appeared that Germany had instigated Austria 
in its course, it could not have supported its 
first contention that the quarrel was a local one 
and it could not reasonably dispute the right of 
Russia to intervene. For this purpose the fable 
was invented. It deceived no one. 

The French Yellow Book discloses another even 
more amazing feature of this policy of deception, 
for it shows on the authority of the Italian Foreign 
Minister that Germany and Austria did not 
even take their own ally into their confidence. 
The significance of this fact cannot be over- 
estimated. Nothing in the whole record more 
clearly demonstrates the purpose of the German 

1 Ante, p. 36. 



n8 The Evidence in the Case 

and Austrian diplomats to set a trap for the 
rest of Europe. 

Under the terms of the Triple Alliance it was 
the duty of each member to submit to its associates 
all matters which might involve the possibility of 
joint cooperation. Even if this had not been 
written in the very terms of the Alliance, it would 
follow as a necessary implication, for when each 
member obligated itself to cooperate with its 
allies in any attack upon either of them, but not 
in any aggressive war, it necessarily followed that 
each ally had the right to the fullest information 
as to any controversy which might involve such 
action, so that it might determine whether it fell 
within the terms of the obligation. 

Neither the German nor the Austrian Foreign 
Office have ever submitted any documentary proof 
that they discharged this obligation to their ally 
and it may be added they have never pretended 
that they did so. 

If further proof were needed, we find in the 
French Yellow Book a report from the French 
Minister at Rome to his Foreign Office, under 
date July the 27th, reporting a conversation be- 
tween the French Minister and the Italian Foreign 
Minister, the Marquis di San Giuliano, on that 
day, in which the latter spoke of the 



The Attitude of France 119 

contents of the Austrian note, and assured me 
that he had had no previous knowledge of them 
whatever. 

He was well aware that the note was to be vigor- 
ous and energetic in character, but he had no idea 
that it could take such a form. I asked him if it 
was true, as is stated in certain newspapers, that 
in this connection he had expressed in Vienna ap- 
proval of Austrian action, and had given the assur- 
ance that Italy would fulfill her duties as an ally 
towards Austria. He replied, "In no way have we 
been consulted; we have been told nothing whatever. 
We have therefore had no reason to make any 
communication of this nature in Vienna." l 

The reason for this secrecy is not far to seek. 
Almost a year before the Archduke's death, Aus- 
tria had sounded Italy as to its willingness to 
acquiesce or participate in a war by Austria 
against Servia, and Italy had refused. For this 
reason and also because an Austrian war against 
Servia was not to the interests of Italy, Aus- 
tria and Germany both recognized, without even 
consulting their ally, that they could not count 
upon its cooperation in such a war. To submit 
their proposed action to Italy was to invite 
a deliberate expression of disapproval, and this 
would make it more difficult for them to de- 
mand its cooperation, if they could carry out 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 72. 



120 The Evidence in the Case 

their policy of so flouting Russia as to compel it 
to initiate an aggressive war, as they clearly 
hoped to do. 

There was, however, another and very practical 
reason for this failure to consult their ally. We 
have seen that the whole policy of the Austrian 
ultimatum was founded upon secrecy. The plan 
was to give to Europe no possible intimation of 
the intended action until it was accomplished and 
then to give to Europe only twenty-four hours 
within which to deliberate or act. If as a matter 
of courtesy Austria and Germany submitted to 
their ally their proposed course of action, Italy, 
being wholly opposed to any such unprovoked 
attack upon Servia, might find a way, either by 
open and public protest or by dropping a confiden- 
tial intimation, to advise the other countries as 
to what was in preparation. This would defeat 
the principal purpose of Germany and Austria, 
to force a quick decision and to prepare for 
eventualities before any other country could make 
ready. Germany and Austria therefore wholly 
ignored their ally and pursued their stealthy policy 
to its discreditable end. 

When their diplomatic communications are dis- 
closed in full, this feature of their policy may dis- 
close some significant admissions. 



The Attitude of France 121 

We have already seen (ante, p. 35) that when 
on July the 20th, three days before the Austrian 
ultimatum was issued, Sir Edward Grey asked 
Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador in 
London, as to what news he had from Vienna 
with reference to the intentions of his country, 
Prince Lichnowsky affected to be ignorant. Eut 
it appears from a letter, which M. Paul Cambon 1 
wrote to his Foreign Ofhce on July the 24th, 19 14, 
that Prince Lichnowsky had returned to London 
from Berlin about a month before and had "dis- 
played pessimistic views as to the relations between 
St. Petersburg and Berlin." Cambon adds that 
the English Foreign Office and his other diplomatic 
colleagues had all been struck "by the anxious 
appearance of Prince Lichnowsky since his return 
from Berlin." 2 

So designedly was the Austrian ultimatum 
withheld from the chancelleries of Europe, other 
than Vienna and Berlin, that on the day following 
its issuance at Belgrade, the only information 
which M. Jules Cambon had of its issuance 
were the extracts in the press, and he thereupon 
saw the German Secretary of State and asked 
him whether such an ultimatum had been sent. 

1 The French Ambassador at London. 

2 French Yellow Book, No. 32. 



122 The Evidence in the Case 

Herr von Jagow replied affirmatively, adding that 
the note was energetic, and that he approved it, 
the Servian Government having long since exhausted 
Austrian patience. He considers, moreover, that 
for Austria the question is one of a domestic nature, 
and he hopes that it will be localized. I then said 
to him that, not having received any instructions, 
I only wished to have with him an entirely personal 
exchange of views. I then asked him if the Berlin 
Cabinet had really been in complete ignorance of 
the Austrian claims before they were communicated 
to Belgrade, and as he replied that this ivas so, I 
expressed my surprise that he should thus undertake 
to support pretensions, the limit and nature of 
which he ignored. 

"It is only," said Herr von Jagow, interrupting 
me, "because we are talking personally between 
ourselves that I allow you to say that to me." 

"Certainly," I replied, "but if Peter I. humiliates 
himself Servia will probably be given over to inter- 
nal troubles. That will open the door to fresh pos- 
sibilities, and do you know where Vienna will lead 
you?" I added that the language of the German 
Press was not that of a people who were indifferent 
and foreign to the affair, but told of active support. 
Finally, I remarked that the shortness of the time 
given to Servia in which to yield would make a bad 
impression upon Europe. 

Herr von Jagow replied that he expected "un 
peu d' emotion," on the part of Servia's friends, but 
that he counted upon their giving Servia good 
advice. 

"I do not doubt," I then said, "that Russia will 
make an effort in Belgrade to bring the Cabinet to 



The Attitude of France 123 

make what concessions are acceptable, but if you 
ask something of one, why not ask it of the other ? 
And if it be expected that advice will be given in 
Belgrade, is it not legitimate to expect that on the 
other hand advice will also be tendered to Vienna?" 
The Secretary of State allowed himself to say 
that that would depend on circumstances, but, re- 
covering himself immediately, declared that the 
matter must be localized. He asked me if really 
I considered the situation serious. "Assuredly," 
I replied, "for, if what is going on has been pondered 
over, I do not understand why people have cut 
their bridges behind them." 1 

The Yellow Book throws further light upon the 
extraordinarily petty finesse, with which the chan- 
celleries of Berlin and Vienna attempted to take 
a snap judgment upon the rest of Europe. We 
learn from Exhibit No. 55 that Count Berchtold 
had given to the Russian Ambassador at Vienna, 
prior to the issuance of the ultimatum, an express 
assurance "that the claims against Servia would 
be thoroughly acceptable," and that upon this 
assurance Count Schebeko had left Vienna on a 
leave of absence. During his absence and at a 
time when the President of the French Republic, 
the French Premier, and its Minister of Foreign 
Affairs were far distant from Paris and on the 
high seas, the ultimatum was issued, and, as we 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 30. 



124 The Evidence in the Case 

have seen, Count Berchtold immediately betook 
himself to Ischl and remained there until the ex- 
piration of the brief time limit in the ultimatum. 

The same policy was pursued with reference to 
other Ambassadors, for when France instructed 
its representative in Vienna "to call the attention 
of the Austrian Government to the anxiety aroused 
in Europe, Baron Macchio stated to our Ambassa- 
dor that the tone of the Austrian note and the 
demands formulated by it permitted one to count 
upon a pacific denouement." 1 

In the same communication, in which this infor- 
mation is embodied, we gain the important infor- 
mation that "in the Vienna Diplomatic Corps 
the German Ambassador recommends violent 
resolutions whilst declaring ostensibly that the 
Imperial Chancellery is not wholly in agreement 
with him on this point." 

Pursuant to the same ostrich policy, the Ger- 
man Secretary of State, as we have previously 
seen (ante, pp. 71-75), gave to both the French and 
English Ambassadors the absence of Count Berch- 
told at Ischl as an excuse for the failure of Ger- 
many to get any extension of the time limit, and 
not only did he assure them repeatedly and in 
the most unequivocal way that the German 

1 French Yellow Book, No, 20. 



The Attitude of France 125 

Foreign Office had no knowledge of, or responsi- 
bility for, the Austrian ultimatum, but when on 
July the 25th the Russian Charge requested a 
personal appointment with von Jagow in order 
to present his country's request for such an exten- 
sion, the German Secretary of State only gave 
"him an appointment at the end of the afternoon, 
that is to say, at the moment when the ultimatum 
will expire," and in view of this illusory appoint- 
ment the Russian Charge (M. Broniowski) 

sent, with all speed, a written note to the Secretary 
of State, in which he pointed out that the delay of 
the communication made by Austria to the Powers 
rendered the effect of the communication illusory, 
since it did not give the Powers time to become 
acquainted with the facts alleged before the ex- 
piry of the ultimatum. He insisted very urgently 
on the necessity of extending it, if one had not in 
view the creation of a great crisis. x 

Thus in Berlin and Vienna by concerted action 
the representatives of England, France, and Russia 
were evaded until the time limit for Servia had 
expired. 

Contrast with this petty finesse the spirit 
with which Sazonof attempted to reach an agree- 
ment with the Austrian Ambassador at St. Peters- 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 42. 



126 The Evidence in the Case 

burg on July 26th, as set forth in the report of 
the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg, under 
that date. He says: 

The Minister for Foreign Affairs continues with 
praiseworthy perseverance to seek means to bring 
about a peaceful solution. "I shall show myself 
ready to negotiate up to the last instant," he said 
to me. 

It is in this spirit that he has asked Count Szapary x 
to come and see him for a " frank and loyal expla- 
nation." In his presence M. Sazonof discussed the 
Austro-Hungarian ultimatum, article by article, 
showing clearly the insulting character of the differ- 
ent clauses. "The intention which inspired this 
document," he said, "is legitimate if you pursue 
no other aim but the protection of your territory 
against the agitation of Servian anarchists, but the 
step to which you have had recourse is not defens- 
ible. ' ' He concluded, ' ' Take back your ultimatum , 
modify its form, and I will guarantee the result." 2 

Upon one phase of Germany's foreign policy 
in this crisis the French Yellow Book naturally 
throws more light than the other publications. I 
refer to the attempt of Germany to coerce France 
into a position of neutrality, or possibly to secure 
from it some definition of its attitude, which would 
compromise its relations with Russia. The Yel- 

1 The Austrian Ambassador. 

2 French Yellow Book, No. 54. 



The Attitude of France 127 

low Book charges that the German Ambassador, 
under the pretext of securing an authorized state- 
ment to the press to allay public excitement, thus 
attempted to compromise France. The docu- 
ments go far to suggest this possibility but are 
not wholly convincing. 

The German Ambassador on July the 24th, the 
very day that the ultimatum reached the chancel- 
leries of Europe, and on the day when von Jagow 
untruthfully claimed that it had first reached Ber- 
lin, called upon the French Minister for Foreign 
Affairs and read to him a formal note, of which 
he was unwilling to leave a copy, although he char- 
acterized it as a note of importance. 

It may be here noted that on more than one 
occasion in this diplomatic crisis the German 
representatives were unwilling to leave a copy of 
the diplomatic messages which they orally com- 
municated. 

In his memorandum the French Minister for 
Foreign Affairs says: 

The German Ambassador especially directed my 
attention to the last two paragraphs of his note 
before he read it. He indicated that in them lay 
the chief point. I took note of the actual text, 
which is as follows: "The German Government 
considers that the present question is a matter to 
be settled exclusively between Austria-Hungary 



128 The Evidence in the Case 

and Servia, and that the Powers have the greatest 
interest in restricting it to the two interested parties. 
The German Government ardently desires the 
localization of the conflict, since by the natural 
play of alliances any intervention by another Power 
would have incalculable consequences." 

I remarked to the German Ambassador that just 
as it appeared to be legitimate to call for the punish- 
ment of all those concerned in the crime of Serajevo, 
on the other hand it seemed difficult to require 
measures which could not be accepted, having re- 
gard to the dignity and sovereignty of Servia; the 
Servian Government, even if it was willing to sub- 
mit to them, would risk being carried away by a 
revolution. 

I also pointed out to Herr von Schoen 1 that his 
note only took into account two hypotheses: that 
of a pure and simple refusal or that of a provocative 
attitude on the part of Servia. The third hypothesis 
(which would leave the door open for an arrange- 
ment) should also be taken into consideration; that 
of Servia's acceptance and of her agreeing at once 
to give full satisfaction for the punishment of the 
accomplices and full guarantees for the suppression 
of the anti- Austrian propaganda so far as they were 
compatible with her sovereignty and dignity. 

I added that if within these limits the satisfaction 
desired by Austria could be admitted, the means of 
obtaining it could be examined; if Servia gave obvi- 
ous proof of goodwill it could not be thought that 
Austria would refuse to take part in the conversation. 

Perhaps they should not make it too difficult for 

1 The German Ambassador. 



The Attitude of France 129 

third party Powers, who could not either morally 
or sentimentally cease to take interest in Servia, to 
take an attitude which was in accord with the 
wishes of Germany to localize the dispute. 

Herr von Schoen recognized the justice of these 
considerations and vaguely stated that hope was 
always possible. When I asked him if we should 
give to the Austrian note the character of a simple 
mise en demeure, which permitted a discussion, or 
an ultimatum, he answered that personally he had 
no views. 1 

On the following day the German Ambassador 
again called at the French Foreign Office and 
protested against an article, which had appeared 
in a Paris newspaper and which had characterized 
his communication of the preceding day as the 
" German menace." The German Ambassador 
again gave an unequivocal assurance 

that there was no agreement between Austria and 
Germany over the Austrian note, of which the 
German Government was ignorant, although the 
German Government had subsequently approved 
it on receiving communication of it at the same 
time as the other Powers. 2 

The hardihood of this statement, in view of the 
fact that on the preceding day, simultaneously 
with the service of the ultimatum, the threatening 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 28. 2 Ibid. No. 36. 

9 



130 The Evidence in the Case 

demand had been delivered by Germany to the 
leading European chancelleries that the quarrel 
between Austria and Servia must be localized, 
is apparent. Baron von Schoen, the German 
Ambassador, then denied that his suggestion of 
"incalculable consequences," if the dispute were 
not localized, was a " menace. " This statement, 
repeated by German diplomats in other capitals, 
approaches the ludicrous. The first military 
power of Europe formally advises other nations 
that unless they waive their legitimate claims and 
interests, "incalculable consequences" will follow, 
and it is gravely suggested that this is not a 
"menace." 

On the following day Baron von Schoen made 
two visits at the French Foreign Office and assured 
the acting Minister for Foreign Affairs that 



Germany was on the side of France in the ardent de- 
sire for the maintenance of peace, and she earnestly 
hoped that France would use her influence in a 
soothing manner in St. Petersburg. 

I replied to this suggestion that Russia was 
moderate, that she had committed no act throwing 
doubt upon her moderation, and that we were in 
agreement with her in seeking for a peaceful solution 
of the struggle. It therefore appeared to me that in 
counterpart Germany should act in Vienna, where 
the efficacy of her action was sure, with a view to 



The Attitude of France 131 

avoiding military operations tending to the occupa- 
tion of Servia. 

The Ambassador having pointed out to me that 
that was irreconcilable with the position adopted 
by Germany, "that the question only concerned 
Austria and Servia," I said to him that mediation 
in Vienna and St. Petersburg might be made by the 
four Powers who were less directly interested in the 
matter. 

Baron von Schoen then sheltered himself behind 
his lack of instructions on this point, and I told him 
that in these circumstances I did not feel able to 
act in St. Petersburg alone. 

Our conversation concluded with the renewed 
assurance by the Ambassador as to the peaceful 
intentions of Germany, who, he declared, was with 
France on this point. 1 

The incident now followed, which suggested to 
the French Foreign office a subtle attempt of 
Germany to compromise the relations of France 
with Russia by imputing disloyalty to the former. 
On his second visit a few hours later, Baron von 
Schoen desired the French Foreign Office to give 
to the public a statement with reference to the 
preceding interview, and suggested the following, 
which he dictated to the French official : 

"The German Ambassador and the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs had a further interview in the course 
of the afternoon, during which they examined, in 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 56. 



132 The Evidence in the Case 

the most friendly spirit and with a feeling of pacific 
solidarity, the means which might be employed for 
the maintenance of general peace." 

The Acting Political Director at once replied: 
"Then, in your mind, everything is settled, and 
you give us the assurance that Austria accepts the 
Servian note, or will be willing to converse with the 
Powers with regard to it?" 

The Ambassador appeared to be taken aback, 
and made a vigorous denial. It was therefore 
pointed out to him that if nothing had changed in 
the negative attitude of Germany, the terms of the 
suggested "note to the Press" were excessive, and 
likely to give French opinion a false feeling of 
security by creating illusions as to the actual situ- 
ation, the dangers of which were but too evident. 1 

It is not surprising that the French Foreign 
Office looked askance at these German suggestions 
of "pacific solidarity" with France, which con- 
trasted so strangely with Germany's refusal to 
work for peace and its sinister menaces to other 
countries. France's suspicion that Baron von 
Schoen was thus attempting to compromise its 
loyalty in the eyes of Russia cannot be said to be 
without some foundation, although it is as reason- 
able to assume that these professions of the Ger- 
man Ambassador were only an incident to the 
general plan of lulling France and its allies into 

1 French Yellow Book, No. 57. 



The Attitude of France 133 

a false sense of security. Here again the full 
truth can only be ascertained when Germany is 
willing to submit to the scrutiny of the world the 
records of its Foreign Office. 

On July 26th, M. Jules Cambon had an inter- 
view with the German Secretary of State and 
earnestly supported Sir Edward Grey's suggestion 
that a conference be called in which England, 
France, Germany, and Italy should participate 
for the preservation of peace. This interview is 
at once so dramatic, and almost prophetic, that 
it justifies quotation in extenso: 

To Cambon's proposition, von Jagow replied, as 
he did to the British Ambassador, that he could not 
accept a proposal to charge the Italian, French, and 
German Ambassadors with the task of seeking, 
with Sir Edward Grey, a means of solving the 
present difficulties, for that would be to establish a 
regular conference to deal with the affairs of Austria 
and Russia. I replied to Herr von Jagow that I 
regretted his response, but that the great object, 
which Sir Edward Grey had in view, was above a 
question of form, and what was important was the 
association of England and France with Germany 
and Italy in laboring for peace; that this associa- 
tion could show itself in common action in St. Peters- 
burg and Vienna; that he had frequently expressed 
to me his regret at seeing the two groups of alliances 
always opposed to each other in Europe, and that 
here he had an opportunity of proving that there 



134 The Evidence in the Case 

was a European spirit, by showing four Powers 
belonging to the two groups acting in common 
agreement to prevent a struggle. Herr von Jagow 
evaded the matter by saying that Germany had 
her engagements with Austria. I pointed out that 
the relations of Germany with Vienna were no more 
close than those of France with Russia, and that it 
was he himself who raised the question of the two 
opposed groups of alliances. 

The Secretary of State then said that he did not 
refuse to act with a view to avoiding an Austro- 
Russian conflict, but that he could not intervene 
in the Austro-Servian conflict. "One is the con- 
sequence of the other," I said, "and it would be 
well to prevent the creation of any new state of 
affairs calculated to bring about the intervention of 
Russia." 

As the Secretary of State persisted in saying that 
he was obliged to observe his engagements with 
regard to Austria, I asked him if he had pledged 
himself to follow Austria everywhere blindfold, and 
if he had made himself acquainted with the Servian 
reply to Austria, which had been handed to him 
that morning by the Servian Charge d'affaires. 
"/ have not yet had time,'" he said. "I regret it," I 
replied. "You will see that except on points of 
detail Servia has yielded completely. It would 
seem, however, that since Austria has obtained the 
satisfaction, which your support procured her, you 
might to-day advise her to be content, or to examine 
with Servia the terms of the Servian reply." 

As Herr von Jagow did not answer me clearly, 
I asked him if Germany wanted war. He protested 
energetically, saying that he knew that that was 



The Attitude of France 135 

my idea but that it was completely incorrect. 
"You must then," I replied, "act in consequence. 
When you read the Servian reply, weigh the terms with 
your conscience, I beg you in the name of humanity, 
and do not personally assume a portion of the respon- 
sibility for the catastrophe, whose preparation you 
are allowing." Herr von Jagow protested again, 
adding that he was ready to join England and 
France in any common effort, but that some form 
must be found for this intervention which he could 
accept and that the Cabinets should agree among 
themselves upon the matter. "Moreover," he 
added, "direct conversations between Vienna and 
St. Petersburg are begun and are proceeding. I 
expect much good of them, and I have hope." 1 

In his solemn injunction to von Jagow "in the 
name of humanity" to weigh the terms in his con- 
science, Cambon struck a loftier note than any 
of the diplomatic disputants. Macaulay has 
said that the "French mind has always been the 
interpreter between national ideas and those of 
universal mankind," and at least since the French 
Revolution the tribute has been deserved. 

He, who carefully and dispassionately reads the 
diplomatic correspondence which preceded the 
war, must be impressed with the different point of 
view of the two groups of disputants. Both the 
written and oral communications of the German 

'French Yellow Book, No. 74. 



136 The Evidence in the Case 

and Austrian representatives failed to suggest at 
any time a note other than one of selfish national- 
ism. We search in vain for the most distant rec- 
ognition of the fact that the world at large had any 
legitimate interest in the controversy. The insis- 
tent note, which Austria sounded, was that its in- 
terests required its punitive action against Servia, 
even though the peace of the world were thereby 
sacrificed, and that of Germany repeated with 
equal insistence that its "closest interests' ' sum- 
moned it to the side of Austria. 

In marked contrast to this spirit of national 
selfishness is the repeated admonition of Sir 
Edward Grey that the whole question should 
be considered in its " larger aspects," thereby 
meaning the peace and welfare of Europe; while 
the Czar, with evident sincerity, suggested to 
the Kaiser that "with the aid of God it must be 
possible to our long tried friendship to prevent the 
shedding of blood," and proposed a reference of 
the question to the Hague. Similarly the appeal 
of Jules Cambon to von Jagow, "in the name of 
humanity" was more than the ordinary exchange 
of diplomatic views. Von Jagow's conception of 
his duty is shown by the fact that he had taken 
a position involving "incalculable consequences" 
without even reading the Servian reply. 



The Attitude of France 137 

Cambon approved himself a worthy "yoke 
fellow in equity" with Sir Edward Grey, and no 
loftier tone was sounded by any participant in 
this great controversy, unless we except Goschen's 
solemn statement to von Bethmann-Hollweg in 
the equally dramatic interview, which succeeded 
the rupture of relations between England and 
Germany, when Goschen stated that "it was so 
to speak a matter of life and death for the honor 
of Great Britain that she should keep her solemn 
engagement to do her utmost to defend Belgium's 
neutrality if attacked," and added, "that fear of 
consequences could hardly be regarded as an 
excuse for breaking solemn promises." 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE INTERVENTION OF THE KAISER 

The Kaiser now appears upon the scene with a 
fatal result on the peace of Europe. One fact in 
this controversy is too clear for dispute. When 
peace proposals were still under consideration and 
some slight progress had been made by the 
eleventh -hour consent of Austria on July 31 to 
discuss with Russia the merits of the Servian 
question, the Kaiser — like Brennus with his va 
metis — threw his sword into the trembling scales 
and definitely turned the balance against the 
peace of the world. 

Was it a reluctant Caesar who thus crossed the 
Rubicon, at whose fateful margin he had stood at 
other crises of his peaceful reign without destroying 
that peace? 

Our information is still too meager to justify a 
satisfactory answer at this time. Not only are 
the premises in dispute, but the inferences from 
admitted premises are too conflicting. 

At the time the Austrian Archduke was mur- 
13a 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 139 

dered the Kaiser was in Berlin, and he at once 
showed an intense interest in the event and in all 
that it portended. It was officially announced 
that he planned to attend the funeral in Vienna, 
but later the world was advised that he had 
suffered a "chill," which would prevent such 
attendance. Perhaps it was a diplomatic chill. 
He then left for Norway, where he remained in 
the enjoyment of his annual holiday until the 
evening of July 26th, when he suddenly returned 
to his Capitol. 

Evidently his return was unexpected, for we 
learn from a telegram from Sir H. Rumbold to 
Sir Edward Grey, dated July 26th, that, 

the Emperor returned suddenly to-night and [the 
German] Under-Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs says that the Foreign Office regrets this 
step which was taken on His Majesty's own initia- 
tive. They fear that His Majesty's sudden return 
may cause speculation and excitement. 

As the refusal of Austria to accept the Servian 
reply and its severance of all diplomatic relations 
with that country had already thrown the entire 
world into a state of feverish anxiety, it is difficult 
to understand why the German Foreign Office 
should have felt that the very natural return of the 
Kaiser to his Capitol at one of the greatest crises 



140 The Evidence in the Case 

in the history of his country and of the world should 
be regarded as giving rise to " speculation and ex- 
citement," especially as the President of the 
French Republic was hastening back to Paris. 

The Under-Secretary of State's deprecation of 
the Kaiser's return suggests the possibility that 
the German Foreign Office, which had already 
made substantial progress in precipitating the 
crisis, did not wish the Kaiser's return for fear 
that he might again exert, as in the Moroccan 
crisis, his great influence in the interests of peace. 

It felt that it had the matter well in hand, but 
never before did a foreign office blunder so fla- 
grantly and with such disastrous results. From 
beginning to end every anticipation that the 
German Chancellor had was falsified by events. 
This discreditable and blundering chapter of Ger- 
man diplomacy is enough to make the bones of 
the sagacious Bismarck turn in his grave. 

As appears from Sir M. de Bunsen's dispatch 
to Sir Edward Grey, dated July 26th, it was the 
confident belief of the German diplomats that 
11 Russia will keep quiet during the chastisement of 
Servia," and that " France too was not at all in a 
position for facing the war. " x 

When the full history of this imbroglio is written, 

1 English White Paper, No. 32. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 141 

it will probably be found that the extensive labor 
troubles in St. Petersburg, the military unpre- 
paredness of Russia and France, and the political 
schism in England, then verging to civil war, had 
deeply impressed both Vienna and Berlin that the 
dual alliance could impose its will upon Europe 
with reference to Servia without any serious risk 
of a European war. 

While for these reasons Germany and Austria 
may not have regarded such a war or the inter- 
vention of England therein as probable, yet the 
dual alliance recognized from the outset such a 
possibility. The uncertainty as to the Kaiser's 
attitude with respect to such a war may there- 
fore explain the " regret," with which the German 
Foreign Office witnessed his sudden and uninvited 
return. 

On his return the diplomatic negotiations, which 
had commenced with an allegro con brio, for a 
time changed under the baton of the Imperial 
Conductor into a more peaceful andante, until the 
Kaiser made one of his characteristically sudden 
changes of purpose and. precipitated the war by 
an arrogant ultimatum to Russia, which that 
country could not possibly accept without a fatal 
sacrifice to its self-respect and prestige as a' nation. 

If it be true — and the future may demonstrate 



142 The Evidence in the Case 

it — that this war was planned by Germany at 
least as far back as the Moroccan crisis, then the 
Kaiser's responsibility for the commencement of 
the quarrel cannot be doubted. It is inconceiv- 
able that the German Foreign Office could pursue 
for three years the policy of precipitating a Euro- 
pean war without the knowledge and consent of 
the "Over War Lord." 

When full data are accessible as to the importa- 
tions by Germany in advance of the war, as to its 
withdrawal of foreign credits and placing of 
foreign loans, its sales of stocks by influential 
investors, and its importations on the eve of the 
war of horses and foodstuffs, a strong circumstan- 
tial case may be developed of a deliberate purpose 
to retrieve the Moroccan fiasco by an audacious 
coup which would determine the mastery of Eu- 
rope. The levy in 19 13 of an extraordinary tax 
upon capital, which virtually confiscated the earn- 
ings of the German people for military purposes, 
adds much support to this contention. According 
to Giolitti, the former Italian Premier, Austria 
sounded Italy in August, 191 3, as to its willingness 
to participate in a war against Servia. 1 

The inferences to be drawn from the Kaiser's 
personality are somewhat conflicting. Like all 

1 Giolitti Speech, Italian Chamber, Dec. 5, 1914. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 143 

self -centered and highly neurotic personalities, his 
nature is essentially a dual one. This does not 
mean that he is in any sense a hypocrite, for one 
of the engaging features of his attractive person- 
ality has been the candor and sincerity which 
have marked nearly all his public acts. He has, 
shown himself to be a man of opposite moods, and 
conflicting purposes, having almost as many 
public poses as he has costumes, and a strong 
desire to play as many varied roles as possible on 
the stage of the world. Like Bottom in the 
Midsummer Night's Dream, he would play all 
parts from the " roaring lion" to the shrinking 
Thisbe. 

The ruler who sent a sympathetic message to 
Kruger as an insult to England is he who shortly 
thereafter gratuitously submitted to Queen Vic- 
toria military plans for the subjugation of the 
Boers. 

The ruler, who sent the Panther to Agadir, later 
restrained his country from declaring war against 
England, when Lloyd George threw down the 
gauntlet in his Mansion House speech in the 
Moroccan crisis. 

As preacher, the Kaiser exalted within sight of 
the Mount of Olives the precepts of Christian 
humility, and yet advised his soldiers, on their 



i44 The Evidence in the Case 

departure to China, to "take no prisoners and give 
no quarter." The most affable and democratic 
monarch on occasion will in another mood assume 
the outworn toggery of mediaeval absolutism. A 
democratic business monarch, and as such the 
advance agent of German prosperity, he yet 
shocks the common sense and awakens the ridicule 
of the world by posing as a combination of Caesar 
and Mahomet. 

The avowed champion of Christianity, who has 
preached with the fervor of Peter the Hermit 
against the Yellow Race, he has nevertheless, since 
this war began, instigated the Sultan of Turkey to 
proclaim in the Moslem world a "holy war " against 
his Christian enemies. 

Pacific and bellicose by turns the monarch, who 
throughout his whole reign has hitherto kept the 
peace of the world, has yet on slight pretext given 
utterance to the most warlike and incendiary 
statements. 

How is it possible to draw any inference from 
such a personality, of whom it could be said, as 
Sydney Smith once said of Lord John Russell, that 

there is nothing he would not undertake. I believe 
he would perform an operation for stone, build St. 
Peter's, assume (with or without ten minutes' no- 
tice) the command of the Channel Fleet, and no one 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 145 

would discover from his manner that the patient had 
died, that St. Peter's had tumbled down, and that 
the Channel Fleet had been knocked to atoms. 

We should therefore dismiss all inferences sug- 
gested by his complex personality and should judge 
him on what he did from the time that he suddenly 
arrived in Berlin on July 26th, until the issuance 
by his direct order of the fatal ultimatum to 
Russia. 

Before proceeding to analyze the very interest- 
ing and dramatic correspondence, which passed 
between the rulers of Germany, England, and 
Russia — doubly interesting because of the family 
relationship and the unusual personal and cousinly 
intimacy of these dispatches — it is well to inquire 
what the Kaiser could have done that would have 
immediately avoided the crisis and saved the 
situation. So far as the published record goes, 
he did not send a single cablegram in the interests 
of peace to his illustrious ally, the Emperor 
Francis Joseph. 

Let us suppose that he had sent the following : 

I have just returned to Berlin and find Europe 
on the verge of war. I sympathize entirely with 
you and your country in its demands upon Servia. 
I agree with you that the Servian reply is not satis- 
factory. In accordance with the obligations of our 



146 The Evidence in the Case 

alliance, I shall in any event support with the full 
power of the German sword the cause of Austria. 
Servia has by its reply admitted its responsibility 
for the murder of the Archduke and has unreserv- 
edly accepted certain of your demands, and as to 
others has agreed to submit them either to The 
Hague Tribunal for arbitration, or to a concert of 
Powers. You will decide whether Austria is satis- 
fied to accept either of these suggestions, but as 
England, France, and Russia have asked that time 
be granted to consider a peaceful and satisfactory 
solution of the difficulty, and as the questions 
reserved by Servia can be used as the basis for 
further discussion without prejudice to the rights 
of Austria, and as it is to the interest of every 
country and the entire world that its peace should 
not be broken unnecessarily, I shall be gratified if 
you can agree that a reasonable time shall be granted 
as a matter of courtesy to Russia, England, and 
France, in order that it may be determined upon 
due consideration whether it is not possible to 
preserve peace without sacrificing in any respect the 
legitimate demands of Austria, which have my full 
sympathy and support. 

WlLHELM. 

Would the Austrian Emperor, himself a noble- 
minded and peace-loving monarch, have refused 
this reasonable request? A little time, a little 
patience and some forbearance for the rights of 
other States and the youth of Europe need not 
have perished. Again, "the pity of it." 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 147 

In its place the following correspondence took 
place between the Kaiser on the one hand and the 
Czar and King George on the other. It is so 
dramatic that it justifies quotations in extenso. 

On the night of July 28th, the Kaiser sent the 
following dispatch to the Czar: 

I have heard with the greatest anxiety of the 
impression which is caused by the action of Austria- 
Hungary against Servia. The unscrupulous agita- 
tion which has been going on for years in Servia 
has led to the revolting crime of which Archduke 
Franz Ferdinand has become a victim. The spirit 
which made the Servians murder their own King 
and his consort still dominates that country. 
Doubtless You will agree with 'me that both of us, 
You as well as I, and all other sovereigns, have a 
common interest to insist that all those who are 
responsible for this horrible murder shall suffer 
their deserved punishment. 

On the other hand I by no means overlook the 
difficulty encountered by You and Your Govern- 
ment to stem the tide of public opinion. In view of 
the cordial friendship which has joined us both for 
a long time with firm ties, I shall use my entire 
influence to induce Austria-Hungary to obtain a 
frank and satisfactory understanding with Russia. 
I hope confidently that You will support me in my 
efforts to overcome all difficulties which may yet 
arise. r 

1 German White Paper, No. 20. The Capitals to the pronouns 
follow the original correspondence. 



148 The Evidence in the Case 

This telegram rings true, and fairly suggests a 
pacific attitude on the part of the Kaiser when he 
first took the helm on his return from Norway. 
Its weakness lies in the fact that the record, as 
presented by the German Government, does not 
disclose any communication which he sent to his 
Austrian ally in the interests of peace. We have 
the frequent assurances of the Kaiser to the Czar 
that he was exerting all his influence to induce his 
ally to come to a satisfactory understanding with 
Russia, but neither over the signature of the Kaiser 
nor over that of his Foreign Minister does the record 
show a single communication addressed to Vienna in 
the interests of peace. 

The Czar did not fail to appreciate this, and his 
reply to the Kaiser rings quite as true and suggests 
the crux of the whole problem. It reads : 

I am glad that You are back in Germany. In 
this serious moment I ask You earnestly to help me. 
An ignominious war has been declared against a 
weak country, and in Russia the indignation, which I 
fully share, is tremendous. I fear that very soon I 
shall be unable to resist the pressure exercised upon 
me and that I shall be forced to take measures 
which will lead to war. To prevent such a calamity 
as a European war would be, I urge You in the 
name of our old friendship to do all in Your power to 
restrain Your ally from going too far. 1 
1 German White Paper, No. 21. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 149 

Who can deny the force of the sentence thus 
italicized? It was Austria which was the provoca- 
tive factor. It was then bombarding Belgrade 
and endeavoring to cross the Danube into Servia. 
It had declared war, and brusquely refused even 
to discuss the question with Russia. It was 
mobilizing its army, and making every effort to 
make a speedy subjugation of Servia. If peace 
was to be preserved, the pressure must begin with 
Austria. If any question remained for peace par- 
leys, the status quo must be preserved. Russia 
could not permit Austria to destroy Servia first and 
then discuss its justice. 

Thereupon the Kaiser telegraphed the Czar as 
follows : 

I have received Your telegram and I share Your 
desire for the conservation of peace. However I 
cannot — as I told You in my first telegram- 
consider the action of Austria-Hungary as an "ig- 
nominious war." Austria-Hungary knows from 
experience that the promises of Servia as long as 
they are merely on paper are entirely unreliable. 

According to my opinion the action of Austria- 
Hungary is to be considered as an attempt to receive 
full guaranty that the promises of Servia are effec- 
tively translated into deeds. In this opinion I am 
strengthened by the explanation of the Austrian 
Cabinet that Austria-Hungary intended no terri- 
torial gain at the expense of Servia. I am therefore 



150 The Evidence in the Case 

of opinion that it is perfectly possible for Russia to 
remain a spectator in the Austro-Servian war with- 
out drawing Europe into the most terrible war it has 
ever seen. I believe that a direct understanding is 
possible and desirable between Your Government 
and Vienna, an understanding which — as I have 
already telegraphed You — my Government en- 
deavors to aid with all possible effort. Naturally 
military measures by Russia, which might be 
construed as a menace by Austria-Hungary, would 
accelerate a calamity which both of us desire 
to avoid and would undermine my position as 
mediator which — upon Your appeal to my friendship 
and aid — -I willingly accepted. * 

The Kaiser's fatal error lies in the concluding 
paragraph of this telegram, in claiming that Russia 
should not take any military measures pending the 
Kaiser's mediation, although Austria should he left 
free not merely to make such preparations against 
Russia, but to pursue its aggressive war then already 
commenced against Servia. If the belligerents were 
expected to desist from military preparations, 
should not the obligation be reciprocal? 

Later that night the Kaiser again telegraphed 
the Czar: 

My Ambassador has instructions to direct the 
attention of Your Government to the dangers and 
serious consequences of a mobilization;. I have told 

1 German White Paper, No. 22. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 15* 

You the same in my last telegram. Austria-Hun- 
gary has mobilized only against Servia, and only a 
part of her army. If Russia, as seems to be the 
case according to Your advice and that of Your 
Government, mobilizes against Austria-Hungary, 
the part of the mediator, with which You have 
entrusted me in such friendly manner and which I 
have accepted upon Your express desire, is threat- 
ened if not made impossible. The entire weight of 
decision now rests upon Your shoulders. You have 
to bear the responsibility for war or peace. * 

To which the Czar replied as follows: 

I thank You from my heart for Your quick reply. 
I am sending to-night Tatisheff (Russian honorary 
aide to the Kaiser) with instructions. The military 
measures now taking form were decided upon five 
days ago, and for the reason of defense against the 
preparations of Austria. I hope with all my heart 
that these measures will not influence in any 
manner Your position as mediator which I appraise 
very highly. We need Your strong pressure upon 
Austria so that an understanding can be arrived at 
with us, 2 

Later the Czar again telegraphed the Kaiser: 

I thank You cordially for Your mediation which 
permits the hope that everything may yet end 
peaceably. It is technically impossible to discon- 
tinue our military preparations which have been 

1 German White Paper, No. 23. 

2 German White Paper, No. 23 A. 



152 The Evidence in the Case 

made necessary by the Austrian mobilization. It is 
far from us to want war. As long as the negotiations 
between Austria and Servia continue, my troops will 
undertake no provocative action. I give You my 
solemn word thereon. I confide with all my faith 
in the grace of God, and I hope for the success of 
Your mediation in Vienna for the welfare of our 
countries and the peace of Europe. 

What more could the Kaiser reasonably ask? 
Here was an assurance from the ruler of a great 
nation, and his royal cousin, that on his " solemn 
word" no provocative action would be taken by 
Russia "as long as the negotiations between Austria 
and Servia continue' ' and this notwithstanding the 
fact that Austria had flouted and ignored Russia, 
had declared war against Servia and was then 
endeavoring to subjugate it quickly by bombarding 
its capital and invading its territory with superior 
forces. 

It is true that the Czar did not order demobiliza- 
tion, and apart from his unquestioned right to 
prepare for eventualities in the event of the failure 
of the peace parleys, the Kaiser himself recognized 
in a later telegram that in the case of Germany 
when mobilization had once been started it could 
not be immediately arrested. 

Simultaneously King George had telegraphed 
the Kaiser through Prince Henry as follows : 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 153 

Thanks for Your telegram ; so pleased to hear of 
William's efforts to concert with Nicky to maintain 
peace. Indeed I am earnestly desirous that such 
an irreparable disaster as a European war should 
be averted. My Government is doing its utmost 
suggesting to Russia and France to suspend further 
military preparations if Austria will consent to be 
satisfied with occupation of Belgrade and neigh- 
boring Servian territory as a hostage for satis- 
factory settlement of her demands ; other countries 
meanwhile suspending their war preparations. 
Trust William will use his great influence to induce 
Austria to accept this proposal, thus proving that 
Germany and England are working together to 
prevent what would be an international catastrophe. 
Pray assure William I am doing and shall continue 
to do all that lies in my power to preserve peace of 
Europe. 1 

The fairness of this proposal can hardly be 
disputed. It conceded to Austria the right to 
occupy the capital of Servia and hold it as a 
hostage for a satisfactory adjustment of her 
demands and even to continue her military 
preparations, while all other nations, including 
Russia, were to suspend their military preparations. 
As the Kaiser precipitated the war because Russia 
would not cease its preparations for eventualities, 
King George's proposal, upon which neither the 

1 Second German White Paper. 



154 The Evidence in the Case 

Kaiser nor his government ever acted, fully met 
his demands. 

To this the Kaiser replied on July 31st: 

Many thanks for kind telegram. Your proposals 
coincide with My ideas and with the statements I 
got this night from Vienna which I have had 
forwarded to London. I just received news from 
Chancellor that official notification has just reached 
him that this night Nicky has ordered the mobiliza- 
tion of his whole army and fleet. He has not even 
awaited the results of the mediation I am working at, 
and left Me without any news. I am off for Berlin 
to take measures for ensuring safety of My eastern 
frontiers where strong Russian troops are already 
posted. x 

On its face this reply seems not unreasonable, 
but it must not be forgotten that Austria con- 
tinued not only to bombard Belgrade but to 
mobilize its armies against Russia as well as Servia. 
Russia agreed to stop all military preparations, if 
Austria would consent to discuss the Servian 
question with a view to peace. Austria until the 
eleventh hour — when it was too late — refused even 
to discuss the Servian question and never offered 
either to demobilize or to cease its attack upon 
Servia. Germany upheld her in this unwarrant- 
able course. 

1 Second German White Paper. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 155 

While in principle the Kaiser agreed with the 
King as to the method of adjustment, there is 
nothing in the record to indicate that the Kaiser 
ever made any suggestion to his ally that it should 
stop its operations against Servia after capturing 
Belgrade, and await the adjustment of the ques- 
tions through diplomatic channels. 

Thereupon King George sent a brief telegram, 
stating that he had sent an urgent telegram to the 
Czar urging this course. Later on July 31st the 
Kaiser sent the following telegram to the Czar : 

Upon Your appeal to my friendship and Your 
request for my aid I have engaged in mediation 
between Your Government and the Government of 
Austria-Hungary. While this action was taking 
place, Your troops were being mobilized against my 
ally, Austria-Hungary, whereby, as I have already 
communicated to You, my mediation has become 
almost illusory. In spite of this, I have continued 
it, and now I receive reliable news that serious 
preparations for war are going on on my eastern 
frontier. The responsibility for the security of my 
country forces me to measures of defense. I have 
gone to the extreme limit of the possible in my 
efforts for the preservation of the peace of the world. 
It is not I who bear the responsibility for the mis- 
fortune which now threatens the entire civilized 
world. It rests in Your hand to avert it. No one 
threatens the honor and peace of Russia which 
might well have awaited the success of my media- 



156 The Evidence in the Case 

tion. The friendship for You and Your country, 
bequeathed to me by my grandfather on his death- 
bed, has always been sacred to me, and I have stood 
faithfully by Russia while it was in serious affliction, 
especially during its last war. The peace of Europe 
can still be preserved by You if Russia decides to 
discontinue those military preparations which menace 
Germany and Austria-Hungary. 

In this fair-spoken message we unhappily find 
no suggestion that Austria would stop its mobil- 
ization, or its military operations against Ser- 
via. The untenable position of the Kaiser, to 
which he adhered with fatal consistency to the 
end, was that Austria should be given the full 
right to mobilize against Russia as well as Servia, 
and that his ally should even be permitted to 
press its aggressive operations against Servia by 
taking possession of its capital and holding it as 
a ransom. In the meantime Russia should not 
make any military preparations, either to move 
effectually against Austria in the event of the 
failure of negotiations, or even to defend itself. 

The Kaiser's suggestion did not even carry 
with it the implication that Germany would stop 
the military preparations that it was then carry- 
ing on in feverish haste, so that the contention 
of the Kaiser, however plausibly it was veiled 
in his telegram, was that Germany and Austria 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 157 

should have full freedom to prepare for war against 
Russia, while Russia was to tie its hands and await 
the outcome of further parleys, with Austrian cannon 
bombarding Belgrade. 

In this correspondence the Kaiser displayed 
his recognized ability as a writer and speaker, for 
in this rapid-fire exchange of telegrams the Kaiser 
was easily the better controversialist. 

He assumed the role of a disinterested party, 
who, at the request of a litigant, agrees to become an 
impartial mediator. He was neither. The Czar 
had not asked him to be a mediator, although in 
the later telegrams the Russian monarch accepted 
that term. The Czar in his first telegram had 
asked the Kaiser as a party to the quarrel "to 
restrain your ally from going too far. ' ' The Kaiser, 
having adroitly accepted a very different role, 
promptly shifts the responsibility upon the Czar 
of embarrassing the so-called "mediation." This 
enabled him to assume the attitude of "injured 
innocence" and very skillfully he played that part. 

This at least is clear that in this correspondence 
the Kaiser was either guilty of insincerity or he 
betrayed a fatal incapacity to grasp the essentials 
of the quarrel. I prefer the latter construction of 
his conduct. Against the bellicose efforts of his 
Foreign Office and his General Staff, I believe that 



158 The Evidence in the Case 

for dynastic reasons he strove for a time to adjust 
the difficulty, but his egomania and his life-long 
habit of personal absolutism blinded him to the 
fact that he was taking an untenable, indeed an 
impossible, position, in contending that Russia 
should effectually tie its hands while Germany and 
Austria should be left free to prepare for eventu- 
alities. Had there been a breathing spell and 
the Kaiser had had more time for reflection, pos- 
sibly the unreasonableness of his contention would 
have suggested itself, but he found on his sudden 
return from Norway that his country, through the 
fatuous folly of its military party, was almost 
irrevocably committed to war. Probably he did 
not dare to reverse openly and formally its policy. 
His popularity had already suffered in the Moroc- 
can crisis. This consideration and the histrionic 
side to his complex personality betrayed him into 
his untenable and fatal position. 

The Kaiser has hitherto been regarded as a man 
of exceptional ability. Time and the issue of this 
war will tell. The verdict of history may be to the 
contrary. The world for a time may easily con- 
fuse restless energy and habitual meddling with 
real ability, but its final verdict will go far deeper. 
Since the Kaiser dropped his sagacious pilot, 
Germany's real position in the world has steadily 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 159 

weakened. Then it was the first power in Europe 
with its rivals disunited. The Kaiser has united 
his enemies with " hooks of steel," driven Russia 
and England into a close alliance,, forced Italy 
out of the Triple Alliance, and as the only com- 
pensation for these disastrous results, he has gained 
the doubtful cooperation of moribund Turkey, 
of which he is likely to say before many months 
are over: "Who will save me from the body of 
this death?" 

In the meantime, Germany was not idle in its 
preparations for eventualities. 

The Kaiser and his counsellors were already 
definitely planning for the war, and were taking 
steps to alienate England from her Allies and 
secure her neutrality. To insure this, the German 
Chancellor, having visited the Kaiser at Pots- 
dam, sent for the British Ambassador, and made 
the following significant offer: 

I was asked to call upon the Chancellor to-night. 
His Excellency had just returned from Potsdam. 

He said that should Austria be attacked by Russia 
a European conflagration might, he feared, become 
inevitable, owing to Germany's obligations as 
Austria's ally, in spite of his continued efforts to 
maintain peace. He then proceeded to make the 
following strong bid for British neutrality. He said 
that it was clear, so far as he was able to judge the 



160 The Evidence in the Case 

main principle which governed British policy, that 
Great Britain would never stand by and allow 
France to be crushed in any conflict there might be. 
That, however, was not the object at which Germany 
aimed. Provided that neutrality of Great Britain 
were certain, every assurance would be given to the 
British Government that the Imperial Government 
aimed at no territorial acquisitions at the expense 
of France, should they prove victorious in any war 
that might ensue. 

I questioned his Excellency about the French 
colonies, and he said that he was unable to give a 
similar undertaking in that respect. As regards 
Holland, however, his Excellency said that, so 
long as Germany's adversaries respected the in- 
tegrity and neutrality of the Netherlands, Germany 
was ready to give his Majesty's Government an 
assurance that she would do likewise. It depended 
upon the action of France what operations Germany 
might be forced to enter upon in Belgium, but when 
the war was over Belgian integrity would be 
respected if she had not sided against Germany. 

His Excellency ended by saying that ever since 
he had been Chancellor the object of his policy had 
been, as you were aware, to bring about an under- 
standing with England; he trusted that these 
assurances might form the basis of that understand- 
ing which he so much desired. He had in mind a 
general neutrality agreement between England and 
Germany, though it was, of course, at the present 
moment too early to discuss details, and an assur- 
ance of British neutrality in the conflict which the 
present crisis might possibly produce, would enable 
him to look forward to a realization of his desire. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 161 

In reply to his Excellency's inquiry how I thought 
his request would appeal to you, I said that I did 
not think it probable that at this stage of events 
you would care to bind yourself to any course of 
action and that I was of opinion that you would 
desire to retain full liberty. ■ 

While the German Foreign Office was thus 
endeavoring to keep England neutral, its army 
was on the move against France. This does not 
rest upon vague allegation, but upon the detailed 
specifications in a communication from the French 
Foreign Office, which the French Ambassador in 
London submitted to Sir Edward Grey on July 
31st. Its significance is apparent when it is re- 
membered that simultaneously the Kaiser was in- 
voking the Czar to demobilize his armies, and cease 
military preparations. 

The German army had its advance posts on our 
frontiers yesterday (Friday). German patrols 
twice penetrated on to our territory. Our advance 
posts are withdrawn to a distance of 10 kilometers 
from the frontier. The local population is protest- 
ing against being thus abandoned to the attack 
of the enemy's army, but the Government wishes 
to make it clear to public opinion and to the British 
Government that in no case will France be the 
aggressor. The whole 16th Corps from Metz, 
reinforced by a part of the 8th from Treves and 

1 English White Paper, No. 85. 



162 The Evidence in the Case 

Cologne, is occupying the frontier at Metz on the 
Luxemburg side. The 1 5th Army Corps from Strass- 
burg has closed up on the frontier. The inhabitants 
of Alsace-Lorraine are prevented by the threat of 
being shot from crossing the frontier. Reservists 
have been called back to Germany by tens of thou- 
sands. This is the last stage before mobilization, 
whereas we have not called out a single reservist. 

As you see, Germany has done it. I would add 
that all my information goes to show that the German 
preparations began on Saturday, the very day on 
which the Austrian note was handed in. 1 

In reply to the suggestion of the German Chan- 
cellor as to the neutrality of England, Sir Edward 
Grey advised the English Ambassador on July 30th, 
as follows : 

His Majesty's Government cannot for a moment 
entertain the Chancellor's proposal that they should 
bind themselves to neutrality on such terms. 

What he asks us in effect is to engage to stand 
by while French colonies are taken and France is 
beaten so long as Germany does not take French 
territory as distinct from the colonies. 

From the material point of view such a proposal 
is unacceptable, for France, without further terri- 
tory in Europe being taken from her, could be so 
crushed as to lose her position as a great Power, 
and become subordinate to German policy. 

Altogether apart from that, it would be a dis- 
grace for us to make this bargain with Germany at 

1 English White Paper, No. 105. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 163 

the expense of France, a disgrace from which the 
good name of this country would never recover. 

The Chancellor also in effect asks us to bargain 
away whatever obligations or interest we have as 
regards the neutrality of Belgium. We could not 
entertain that bargain either. 

Having said so much, it is unnecessary to examine 
whether the prospect of a future general neutrality 
agreement between England and Germany offered 
positive advantages sufficient to compensate us for 
tying our hands now. We must preserve our full 
freedom to act as circumstances may seem to us to 
require in any such unfavorable and regrettable 
development of the present crisis as the Chancellor 
contemplates. 

You should speak to the Chancellor in the above 
sense, and add most earnestly that one way of 
maintaining good relations between England and 
Germany is that they should continue to work 
together to preserve the peace of Europe; if we 
succeed in this object, the mutual relations of 
Germany and England will, I believe, be ipso facto 
improved and strengthened. For that object His 
Majesty's Government will work in that way with 
all sincerity and good- will. 

And I will say this: If the peace of Europe can 
be preserved, and the present crisis safely passed, my 
own endeavor will be to promote some arrangement, to 
which Germany could be a party, by which she could be 
assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would be 
pursued against her or her allies by France, Russia, 
and ourselves, jointly or separately. 

This letter will give Sir Edward Grey lasting 



1 64 The Evidence in the Case 

glory in the history of civilization. Its chivalrous 
fairness to France needs no comment, but its most 
significant feature is the concluding portion, in 
which the English Foreign Minister suggested to 
Germany that if peace could be preserved, Eng- 
land stood ready to join with Germany in an 
alliance which would have insured all the great 
European nations against any aggressive war on 
the part of either of them. 

It was, in fact, the "United States of Europe" 
in embryo. It was the one solution possible for 
these long-continued European wars — essentially 
civil wars — namely an alliance by the six great 
Powers, — a merger of the Triple Alliance and the 
Triple Entente, — whereby any aggressive act on 
the part of any one of them would be prevented by 
the others. What an infinite pity that the im- 
prudent act of the Kaiser, and the mad folly of his 
advisers probably made a fair trial of this most 
hopeful plan for the unification of Europe an im- 
possibility for another century! 

In order that Germany should have no excuse 
whatever to declare war on account of Russia's 
•preparations, the Russian Foreign Minister saw 
the German Ambassador in St. Petersburg on July 
30th, and then offered on behalf of Russia to stop 
all military preparations, provided that Austria 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 165 

would simply recognize as an abstract principle 
that the Servian question had assumed the char- 
acter of a question of European interest. As this 
proposal fully met the demands . of the Kaiser 
with respect to the cessation by Russia of military 
preparations, the conversation as reported by 
the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg to Sir 
Edward Grey on July 30th deserves quotation 
in extenso: 

French Ambassador and I visited Minister for 
Foreign Affairs this morning. His Excellency 
said that German Ambassador had told him yes- 
terday afternoon that German Government were 
willing to guarantee that Servian integrity would be 
respected by Austria. To this he had replied that 
this might be so, but nevertheless Servia would 
become an Austrian vassal, just as, in similar 
circumstances, Bokhara had become a Russian 
vassal. There would be a revolution in Russia if 
she were to tolerate such a state of affairs. 

M. Sazonof told us that absolute proof was in 
possession of Russian Government, that Germany 
was making military and naval preparations against 
Russia — more particularly in the direction of the 
Gulf of Finland. 

German Ambassador had a second interview 
with Minister for Foreign Affairs at 2 a.m., when 
former completely broke down on seeing that war 
was inevitable. He appealed to M. Sazonof to 
make some suggestion which he could telegraph to 



166 The Evidence in the Case 

German Government as a last hope. M. Sazonof 
accordingly drew up and handed to German Am- 
bassador a formula in French, of which the follow- 
ing is a translation : 

•"If Austria, recognizing that her conflict with 
Servia has assumed character of question of European 
interest, declares herself ready to eliminate from her 
ultimatum points which violate principle of sovereignty 
of Servia, Russia engages to stop all military prepara- 
tions.^ 

Later in the day, at the suggestion of Sir Edward 
Grey, the Russian Foreign Minister still further 
modified in the interests of peace the proposition 
upon which Russia was willing to cease all military 
preparations. 

If Austria consents to stay the march of her 
armies upon Servian territory, and if, recognizing 
that the Austro-Servian conflict has assumed the 
character of a question of European interest, she 
admits that the great Powers examine the reparation 
which Servia could accord to the Government of 
Austria-Hungary without injury to her rights as a 
sovereign State and to her independence — Russia 
undertakes to maintain her expectant attitude. 

It will be noted that this formula implied that 
Servia owed some reparation to Austria, and it did 
not bind Austria to accept the judgment of the 
Powers as to the character of such reparation. 

It simply conceded to the Powers the oppor- 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 167 

tunity to "examine" — not the original controversy 
between Austria and Servia — but what reparation 
could be made without a compromise of sover- 
eignty and independence. Austria did not bind 
itself to do anything except to stay the advance of 
her army into Servia, while Russia agreed to 
desist from further preparations or mobilization. 

Could the offer have been more liberal? In face 
of this assurance, how can the Kaiser or Germany 
reasonably contend that it was the mobilization 
of the Russian army which precipitated the war. 

In the meantime Sir Edward Grey was working 
tirelessly to suggest some peace formula, upon 
which the Powers could agree. His suggestions 
for a conference of the four leading Powers of 
Europe, other than Russia and Austria, had been 
negatived by Germany on the frivolous pretext 
that such a conference was "too formal a method, " 
quite ignoring the fact that its very formality 
would have necessarily given a "cooling time" to 
the would-be belligerents. Thereupon Sir Edward 
Grey urged that, 

the German Government should suggest any method 
by which the influence of the four Powers could be used 
together to prevent war between Austria and Russia. 
France agreed. Italy agreed. The whole idea of 
mediation or mediating influence was ready to be 



168 The Evidence in the Case 

put into operation by any method that Germany 
could suggest if mine was not acceptable. In fact, 
mediation was ready to come into operation by any 
method that Germany thought possible if only 
Germany would "press the button" in the interests 
of peace. 1 

Later in the day Sir Edward again repeated his 
suggestion to the German Ambassador in London 
and urged that Germany should, 

propose some method by which the four Powers 
should be able to work together to keep the peace of 
Europe. I pointed out, however, that the Russian 
Government, while desirous of mediation, regarded 
it as a condition that the military operations against 
Servia should be suspended, as otherwise a media- 
tion would only drag on matters and give Austria 
time to crush Servia. It was of course too late for 
all military operations against Servia to be sus- 
pended. In a short time, I supposed, the Austrian 
forces would be in Belgrade, and in occupation of 
some Servian territory. But even then it might 
be possible to bring some mediation into existence, 
if Austria, while saying that she must hold the 
occupied territory until she had complete satisfac- 
tion from Servia, stated that she would not advance 
further, pending an effort of the Powers to mediate 
between her and Russia. 

The only reply that England received to this 
reiterated request that Germany take the lead in 

1 English White Paper, No. 84. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 169 

suggesting some acceptable peace formula was set 
forth in a dispatch from Sir E. Goschen from Berlin 
to Sir Edward Grey : 

I was informed last night that they (the German 
Foreign Office) had not had time to send an answer 
yet. To-day, in reply to an inquiry from the French 
Ambassador as to whether the Imperial Government 
had proposed any course of action, the [German] 
Secretary of State said that he felt that time would be 
saved by communicating with Vienna direct, and that 
he had asked the Austro-Hungarian Government what 
would satisfy them. No answer had, however, yet been 
returned. 

The Chancellor told me last night that he was 
"pressing the button" as hard as he could, and that 
he was not sure whether he had not gone so far in 
urging moderation at Vienna that matters had been 
precipitated rather than otherwise. 1 

The Court of Public Opinion unfortunately is 
not favored in the German White Paper with the 
text of its communication on this subject to Vienna, 
nor is it given any specifications as to the manner 
in which the German Chancellor "pressed the 
button." 

What the world knows without documentary 
proof is that Austria continued its military prep- 
arations and operations and that Russia then 
ordered a general mobilization. The only assur- 

1 See English White Paper, No. 84. 



170 The Evidence in the Case 

ance which Russia received from Austria as a 
result of the alleged " pressing of the button" is 
set forth in the following dispatch from the 
Russian Ambassador at Vienna to Sazonof , dated 
July 31st: 

In spite of the general mobilization I continue 
to exchange views with Count Berchtold and his 
collaborators. All insist on the absence of aggres- 
sive intentions on the part of Austria against Russia 
and of ambitions of conquest in regard to Servia, 
but all equally insist on the necessity for Austria of 
pursuing to the very end the action begun and of giving 
to Servia a serious lesson which would constitute a 
certain guarantee for the future. 

This was in effect a flat refusal of all mediatory 
or otherwise pacific suggestions, for the right of 
Austria to crush Servia by giving it "a serious 
lesson" — what such a lesson is let Louvain, Liege, 
and Rheims witness ! — was the crux of the whole 
question. 

Concurrently Sir Edward Goschen telegraphed 
to Sir Edward Grey that Germany had declared 
that day the "Kriegsgefahr" and that the German 
Chancellor had expressed the opinion that "all 
hope of a peaceful solution of the crisis" was at 
an end. The British Ambassador then asked the 
Chancellor, — 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 171 

whether he could not still put pressure on the 
authorities at Vienna to do something in the general 
interests to reassure Russia and to show themselves 
disposed to continue discussions on a friendly basis. 
He replied that last night he had begged Austria 
to reply to your last proposal, and that he had 
received a reply to the effect that Austrian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs would take the wishes of the 
Emperor this morning in the matter. r 

Here again the world is not favored with the 
text of the message, in which the Chancellor 
"begged Austria to reply," nor with that of the 
Austrian Foreign Minister's reply. 

While these events were happening in Berlin 
and London, the Russian Ambassador in Vienna 
advised Sazonof "that Austria has determined 
not to yield to the intervention of the powers 
and that she is moving troops against Russia as 
well as Servia." 2 

Russia thereupon, on July 31, ordered a general 
mobilization of her army. 

Concurrently with these interviews, the English 
Ambassador in Vienna had a conversation with 
the Austrian Under-Secretary of State and 

called his attention to the fact that during the 
discussion of the Albanian frontier at the London 
Conference of Ambassadors the Russian Gov- 

1 English White Paper, No. 1 12. 2 English White Paper, No. 1 13. 



172 The Evidence in the Case 

ernment had stood behind Servia, and that a 
compromise between the views of Russia and 
Austria-Hungary resulted with accepted frontier 
line. Although he x spoke in a conciliatory tone, and 
did not regard the situation as desperate, / could not 
get from him any suggestion for a similar compromise 
in the present case. Count Forgach is going this 
afternoon to see the Russian Ambassador, whom I 
have informed of the above conversation. 2 

Nothwithstanding all these discouragements 
and rebuffs, Sir Edward Grey, that unwearying 
friend of peace, still continued to make a last 
attempt to preserve peace by instructing the 
British Ambassador in Berlin to sound the German 
Foreign Office, as he would sound the Russian 
Foreign Office, 

whether it would be possible for the four disin- 
terested Powers to offer to Austria that they would 
undertake to see that she obtained full satisfaction 
of her demands on Servia, provided that they did 
not impair Servian sovereignty and the integrity 
of Servian territory. As your Excellency is aware, 
Austria has already declared her willingness to 
respect them. Russia might be informed by the 
four Powers that they would undertake to prevent 
Austrian demands from going the length of impair- 
ing Servian sovereignty and integrity. All Powers 
would of course suspend further military operations 
or preparations. 

1 The Austrian Under-Secretary of State. 
3 English White Paper, No. 118. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 173 

He further instructed Sir Edward Goschen to 
advise the German Foreign Office that he, Sir 
Edward Grey, had that morning proposed to the 
German Ambassador in London, 

that if Germany could get any reasonable proposal put 
forward, which made it clear that Germany and 
Austria were striving to preserve European peace, 
and that Russia and France would be unreasonable 
if they rejected it, I would support it at St. Peters- 
burg and Paris, and go the length of saying that, if 
Russia and France would not accept it, his Majesty's 
Government would have nothing more to do with the 
consequences ; that, otherwise, I told the German 
Ambassador that if France became involved we 
should be drawn in. * 

What, then, was the position when the last fatal 
step was taken? The Czar had pledged his per- 
sonal honor that no provocative action should 
be taken by Russia, while peace parleys were in 
progress, and the Russian Foreign Minister had 
agreed to cease all military preparations, provided 
that Austria would recognize that the question of 
Servia had become one of European interest, and 
that its sovereignty would be respected. 

On July 31st, Austria for the first time in the 
negotiations agreed to discuss with the Russian 
Government the merits of the Servian note. Until 

1 English White Paper, No. in. 



174 The Evidence in the Case 

this eleventh hour Austria had consistently con- 
tended that her difficulty with Servia was her own 
question, in which Russia had no right to intervene, 
and which it would not under any circumstances 
even discuss with Russia. For this reason it had 
refused any time for discussion, abruptly declared 
war against Servia, commenced its military opera- 
tions, and repeatedly declined to discuss even the 
few questions left open in the Servian reply as a 
basis for further peace parleys. 

As recently as July 30th, the Austrian Govern- 
ment had declined or refused any " direct exchange 
of views with the Russian Government." 

But late on July 31st, a so-called " conversation " 
took place at Vienna between Count Berchtold 
and the Russian Ambassador, and as a result, 
the Austrian Ambassador at St. Petersburg was 
instructed to ''converse" with the Russian Minis- 
ter for Foreign Affairs. This important concession 
of Austria was conveyed to Sazonof by the Austrian 
Ambassador at St. Petersburg, who expressed 

the readiness of his Government to discuss the 
substance of the Austrian ultimatum to Servia. 
M. Sazonof replied by expressing his satisfaction 
and said it was desirable that the discussions should 
take place in London with the participation of the 
Great Powers. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 175' 

M. Sazonof hoped that the British Government 
would assume the direction of these discussions. 
The whole of Europe would be thankful to them. 
It would be very important that Austria should 
meanwhile put a stop provisionally to her military 
action on Servian territory. * 

It is important to note that Austria's change of 
heart preceded by some hours the Kaiser's ultimatum 
to Russia. The former took place some time 
during the day on July 31st. The latter was sent 
to St. Petersburg on the midnight of that day. 
It must also be noted that while Austria thus 
agreed at the eleventh hour to "discuss the sub- 
stance of the ultimatum," it did not offer to sus- 
pend military preparations or operations and this 
obviously deprived the concession of its chief 
value. 

The cause and purpose of Austria's partial 
reversal of its policy at present writing can be 
only a matter of conjecture. When Austria pub- 
lishes its correspondence with Germany, we may 
know the truth. 

Two theories are equally plausible : 

Austria may have taken alarm at the steadfast 
purpose of Russia to champion the cause of Servia 
with the sword. If so, its qualified reversal of its 

1 English White Paper, No. 133. 



176 The Evidence in the Case 

bellicose attitude may have induced the war party 
at Berlin to precipitate the war by the ultimatum 
to Russia. In that event, Germany's mad policy 
of war at any cost is even more iniquitous. 

The supposition is equally plausible that Austria 
had been advised from Berlin that that night Ger- 
many would end all efforts to preserve the peace of 
Europe by an ultimatum to Russia, which would 
make war inevitable. The case of Germany and 
Austria at the bar of the world would be made 
morally stronger if, at the outbreak of hostilities, 
the attitude of Austria had become more concilia- 
tory. This would make more plausible their 
contention that the mobilization of Russia and 
not Austria's flat rejection of all peace overtures 
had precipitated the conflict. 

This much is certain that the Kaiser, with full 
knowledge that Austria had consented to renew its 
conferences with Russia, and that a ray of light had 
broken through the lowering war clouds, either on 
his own initiative or yielding to the importunities 
of his military camarilla, directed the issuance of 
the ultimatum to Russia and thus blasted the last 
hope of peace. 

On midnight of July 31st, the German Chan- 
cellor sent the following telegram to the German 
Ambassador at St. Petersburg: 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 177 

In spite of still pending mediatory negotiations, 
and although we ourselves have up to the present 
moment taken no measures for mobilization, Russia 
has mobilized her entire army and navy; in other 
words, mobilized against us also. By these Russian 
measures we have been obliged, for the safeguarding 
of the Empire, to announce that danger of war 
threatens us, which does not yet mean mobilization. 
Mobilization, however, must follow unless Russia 
ceases within twelve hours all warlike measures 
against us and Austria-Hungary and gives us defi- 
nite assurance thereof. Kindly communicate this 
at once to M. Sazonof and wire hour of its communi- 
cation to him. 

At midnight the fateful message was delivered. 
As Sazonof reports the interview : 

At midnight the Ambassador of Germany de- 
clared to me, by order of his Government, that if 
within twelve hours, that is at midday of Saturday, 
we did not commence demobilization, not only in 
regard to Germany but also in regard to Austria, the 
German Government would be forced to give the 
order of mobilization. To my question if this was 
war the Ambassador replied in the negative, but 
added that we were very near it. 

It will be noted by the italicized portion that 
Germany did not restrict its demand that Russia 
cease its preparations against Germany, but it 
should also desist from any preparations to defend 



178 The Evidence in the Case 

itself or assert its rights against Austria, although 
Austria had made no offer to suspend either its 
preparations for war or recall its general mobiliza- 
tion order. 

The twelve hours elapsed and Russia, stand- 
ing upon its dignity as a sovereign nation of 
equal standing with Germany, declined to answer 
this unreasonable and most arrogant demand, 
which under the circumstances was equivalent to 
a declaration of war. 

Simultaneously a like telegram was sent to the 
Ambassador at Paris, requiring the French Govern- 
ment to state in eighteen hours whether it would 
remain neutral in the event of a Russian-German 
war. 

The reasons given for this double ultimatum 
are as disingenuous as the whole course of German 
diplomacy was in this matter. The statement that 
Germany had pursued any mediatory negotiations 
was as untrue as its statement that it had taken 
no measures for mobilization. Equally disingenu- 
ous was the statement with respect to the Kriegs- 
gefahr (state of martial law), for when that was 
declared on July 31st, the railroad, telegraph, and 
other similar public utilities were immediately 
taken over by Germany and the movement of 
troops to the frontier began. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 179 

After the fateful ultimatum had thus been given 
by Germany to Russia, the British Ambassador, 
pursuant to the instructions of his home office, 
saw the German Secretary of State on July 31st, 
and urged him 

most earnestly to accept your [Sir Edward Grey's] 
proposal and make another effort to prevent the 
terrible catastrophe of a European war. 

He [von Jagow] expressed himself very sympa- 
thetically toward your proposal, and appreciated 
your continued efforts to maintain peace but said 
it was impossible for the Imperial Government to con- 
sider any proposal until they had received an answer 
from Russia to their communication of to-day; this 
communication, which he admitted had the form 
of an ultimatum, being that, unless Russia could 
inform the Imperial Government within twelve 
hours that she would immediately countermand her 
mobilization against Germany and Austria, Ger- 
many would be obliged on her side to mobilize at 
once. 

I asked his Excellency why they had made their 
demand even more difficult for Russia to accept 
by asking them to demobilize in the south as well. 
He replied that it was in order to prevent Russia 
from saying that all her mobilization was only 
directed against Austria. 1 

The German Secretary of State also stated to 

1 English White Paper, No. 121. 



180 The Evidence in the Case 

Sir E. Goschen that both the Emperor William 
and the German Foreign Office. 

had even up till last night been urging Austria to 
show willingness to continue discussions, and tele- 
graphic and telephonic communications from 
Vienna had been of a promising nature, but Russia's 
mobilization had spoiled everything. 

Here again it must be noted that the telegraphic 
communications from Vienna have not yet been 
published by the Austrian Government, nor by the 
German Foreign Office in its official defense. 

Sir Edward Grey's last attempt to preserve 
peace was on August ist, when he telegraphed to 
Sir E. Goschen: 

I still believe that it might be possible to secure 
peace if only a little respite in time can be gained 
before any great power begins war. 

The Russian Government has communicated to 
me the readiness of Austria to discuss with Russia 
and the readiness of Austria to accept a basis of 
mediation which is not open to the objections raised 
in regard to the formula which Russia originally 
suggested. 

Things ought not to be hopeless so long as Aus- 
tria and Russia are ready to converse, and I hope 
that the German Government may be able to make 
use of the Russian communications referred to 
above in order to avoid tension. His Majesty's 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 181 

Government are carefully abstaining from any act 
which may precipitate matters. 1 

At that time the twelve-hour ultimatum to 
Russia had already expired, but the British Am- 
bassador saw T the German Secretary of State on 
August ist, and, after submitting to him the sub- 
stance of Sir Edward Grey's telegram last quoted, 

spent a long time arguing with him that the chief 
dispute was between Austria and Russia, and that 
Germany was only drawn in as Austria's ally. //, 
therefore, Austria and Russia were, as was evident, 
ready to discuss matters and Germany did not desire 
war on her own account, it seemed to me only logical 
that Germany should hold her hand and continue to 
work for a peaceful settlement. Secretary of State 
for Foreign Affairs said that Austria's readiness to 
discuss was the result of German influence at 
Vienna, and, had not Russia mobilized against 
Germany, all would have been well. But Russia, 
by abstaining from answering Germany's demand 
that she should demobilize, had caused Germany to 
mobilize also. Russia had said that her mobiliza- 
tion did not necessarily imply war, and that she 
could perfectly well remain mobilized for months 
without making war. This was not the case with 
Germany. She had the speed and Russia had the 
numbers, and the safety of the German Empire for- 
bade that Germany should allow Russia time to bring 
up masses of troops from all parts of her wide do- 

1 English White Paper, No. 131. 



182 The Evidence in the Case 

minions. The situation now was that, though the 
Imperial Government had allowed her several hours 
beyond the specified time, Russia had sent no 
answer. Germany had, therefore, ordered mobiliza- 
tion, and the German representative at St. Peters- 
burg had been instructed within a certain time to 
inform the Russian Government that the Imperial 
Government must regard their refusal to answer 
as creating a state of war. x 

It will thus be seen that although Germany was 
urged to the very last to await the result of the 
conferences, which had just commenced with some 
slight promise of success between Austria and Rus- 
sia, it nevertheless elected to declare war against 
Russia and thus blast beyond possible recall any 
possibility of peace. Its justification for this 
course, as stated in the interview with the German 
Secretary of State last quoted, was that it did not 
propose to forego its advantage of speed as against 
the advantage of Russia's numerical superiority. 
For this there might be some justification, if 
Russia had shown an unyielding and bellicose 
attitude, but apart from the fact that Russia had 
consistently worked in the interests of peace, 
Germany had the express assurance of the Czar 
that no provocative action would be taken while 
peace conferences continued. To disregard these 

1 English White Paper, No. 138. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 183 

assurances and thus destroy the pacific efforts of 
other nations, in order not to lose a tactical advan- 
tage, was the clearest disloyalty to civilization. 
In any aspect, Germany could have fully kept its 
advantage of speed by inducing its ally to suspend 
its aggressive operations against Servia, for in that 
event Russia had expressly obligated itself to 
suspend all military preparations. 

As the final documents in this shameful chapter 
of diplomacy, there need only be added the tele- 
gram, sent by the German Chancellor to his Am- 
bassador at St. Petersburg on August 1, 19 14, 
in which war was declared by Germany against 
Russia on the ground that while Germany and 
Austria should be left free to pursue their aggres- 
sive military preparations, Russia should, on the 
peremptory demand of another nation, cease the 
mobilization of its armies even for self-defense. 
It reads: 

The Imperial Government has endeavored from 
the opening of the crisis to lead it to a pacific solu- 
tion. In accordance with a desire which had been 
expressed to him by His Majesty the Emperor of 
Russia, His Majesty the Emperor of Germany in 
accord with England had applied himself to filling 
a mediatory r61e with the Cabinets of Vienna and 
St. Petersburg, when Russia, without awaiting 
the result of this, proceeded to the complete 



184 The Evidence in the Case 

mobilization of her forces on land and sea. As a 
consequence of this threatening measure, motived 
by no military "presage" on the part of Germany, 
the German Empire found itself in face of a grave 
and imminent danger. If the Imperial Govern- 
ment had failed to safeguard herself against this 
peril it would have compromised the safety and the 
very existence of Germany. Consequently the 
German Government saw itself forced to address 
to the Government of His Majesty the Emperor of 
all the Russias, an insistence on the cessation of the 
said military acts. Russia, having refused to 
accede to (not having thought it should reply to), 
this demand, and having manifested by this refusal 
(this attitude) that its action was directed against 
Germany, I have the honor to make known to 
your Excellency the following: 

His Majesty the Emperor, My August Sovereign, 
in the name of the Empire, taking up the challenge, 
considers himself in a state of war with Russia. 

The feverish haste, with which this fatal step 
was taken, is shown by the fact that the German 
Ambassador could not even wait to state whether 
Russia had refused to answer or answered nega- 
tively. This war — thus begun in such mad haste- 
is likely to be repented of at leisure. 

A few hours before this rash and most iniquitous 
declaration was made the Czar made his last appeal 
for peace. With equal solemnity and pathos he 
telegraphed the Kaiser: 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 185 

/ have received your telegram. I comprehend that 
you are forced to mobilize, but I should like to have 
from you the same guaranty which I have given you, 
viz., that these measures do not mean war, and that we 
shall continue to negotiate for the welfare of our two 
countries and the universal peace which is so dear to 
our hearts. With the aid of God it must be possible 
to our long tried friendship to prevent the shedding 
of blood. I expect with full confidence your urgent 
reply. 

This touching and magnanimous message does 
infinite credit to the Czar. Had the Kaiser been 
as pacific, had he been inspired by the same en- 
lightened spirit in the interests of peace, had 
he been as truly mindful of the God of na- 
tions, whom the Czar thus invoked, it would 
have been possible to prevent the "shedding of 
blood," which has now swept away after only 
three months of war the very flower of the youth 
of Europe. 

To this the Kaiser replied : 

I thank You for Your telegram. I have shown 
yesterday to Your Government the way through 
which alone war may yet be averted. Although I 
asked for a reply by to-day noon, no telegram from 
my Ambassador has reached me with the reply of 
Your Government. I therefore have been forced 
to mobilize my army. An immediate, clear and 
unmistakable reply of Your Government is the sole 



186 The Evidence in the Case 

way to avoid endless misery. Until I receive this 
reply I am unable, to my great grief, to enter upon 
the subject of Your telegram. I must ask most 
earnestly that You, without delay, order Your 
troops to commit, under no circumstances, the 
slightest violation of our frontiers. 

In this is no spirit of compromise; only the 
repeated insistence of the unreasonable and in 
its consequences iniquitous demand that Russia 
should by demobilizing make itself " naked to its 
enemies," while Germany and Austria, without 
making any real concession in the direction of peace, 
should be permitted to arm both for offense and 
defense. 

There were practical reasons which made the 
Kaiser's demand unreasonable. Mobilization 
is a highly developed and complicated piece 
of governmental machinery, and even where 
transportation facilities are of the best, as in 
Germany and France, the mobilization ordinarily 
takes about two weeks to complete. In Russia, 
with limited means of transportation, it was im- 
possible to recall immediately a mobilization order 
that had gone forward to the remotest corners 
of the great Empire. The record shows that 
the Kaiser himself recognized this fact, for in a 
telegram which he sent on August ist to King 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 187 

George, with respect to the possible neutralization 
of England, the Kaiser said: 

I just received the communication from Your 
Government offering French neutrality under the 
guarantee of Great Britain. Added to this offer 
was the inquiry whether under these conditions 
Germany would refrain from attacking France. 
On technical grounds My mobilization, which had 
already been proclaimed this afternoon, must proceed 
against two fronts east and west as prepared; this 
cannot be countermanded because, I am sorry, Your 
telegram came so late. But if France offers Me 
neutrality which must be guaranteed by the British 
fleet and army, I shall of course refrain from attack- 
ing France and employ My troops elsewhere. I 
hope that France will not become nervous. The 
troops on My frontier are in the act of being stopped 
by telegraph and telephone from crossing into 
France. x 

If it were impossible for the Kaiser, with all the 
exceptional facilities of the German Empire, to 
arrest his mobilization for " technical" reasons, it 
was infinitely more difficult for the Czar to arrest 
immediately his military preparations. The de- 
mand of Germany was not that Russia should 
simply cancel the mobilization order. It was that 

1 No such offer had been made. The Kaiser's error was due to 
a misunderstanding, which had arisen quite honestly between Sir 
Edward Grey and the German Ambassador in London. King 
George promptly corrected this misapprehension of the Kaiser. 



188 The Evidence in the Case 

Russia should "cease within twelve hours all 
warlike measures," and it demanded a physical 
impossibility. 

In any event, mobilization does not necessarily 
mean aggression, but simply preparation, as the 
Czar had so clearly pointed out to the Kaiser in 
the telegram already quoted. It is the right of 
a sovereign State and by no code of ethics 
a casus belli. Germany's demand that Russia 
should not arm to defend itself, when its prestige 
as a great European power was at stake and when 
Austria was pushing her aggressive preparations, 
treated Russia as an inferior, almost a vassal, State. 
Its rejection must have been recognized by the 
Kaiser and his advisers as inevitable, and, on the 
theory that a man intends the natural consequences 
of his acts, it must be assumed that the Kaiser in 
this mad demand at that time desired and in- 
tended war, however pacific his purposes may 
have been when he first took the helm. 

Such will be his awful responsibility "to the last 
syllable of recorded time." 

How well prepared Germany was, the sequel 
developed only too surely. On the following day— 
August 2d — its troops invaded Luxemburg and 
an abrupt demand was made upon Belgium 
for permission to cross its territory. 



The Intervention of the Kaiser 189 

Upon the declaration of war, the Czar tele- 
graphed to King George of England as follows : 

"In this solemn hour, I wish to assure you once 
more I have done all in my power to avert war." * 

Such will be the verdict of history. 

1 It is a curious and suggestive fact that the German Foreign 
Office in publishing the correspondence between the Kaiser and 
the Czar omitted one of the most important telegrams. 

The Russian Government on January 31, 1915, therefore, 
made public the following telegram which the Czar sent to the 
Kaiser on July 29, 19 14: 

" Thanks for your conciliatory and friendly telegram. 
Inasmuch as the official message presented to-day by 
your Ambassador to my Minister was conveyed in a 
very different tone, I beg you to explain this diver- 
gency. It would be right to give over the Austro- 
Servian problem to The Hague Conference. I trust in 
your wisdom and friendship." 

The German Foreign Office has since explained that they re- 
garded this telegram as too "unimportant" for publication. 
Comment i unnecessary . 

It thus appears that the Czar at the beginning of his cor- 
respondence with the Kaiser suggested that the whole dispute 
be submitted to The Hague Tribunal for adjustment. Servia 
had already made the same suggestion. 

As the world owes the first Hague Convention to the Czar's 
initiative, it can justly be said to his lasting credit that he at 
least was loyal to the pacific ideal of that great convention of 
the nations. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE CASE OF BELGIUM 

The callous disregard by Germany of the rights 
of Belgium is one of the most shocking exhibitions 
of political iniquity in the history of the world. 

That it has had its parallel in other and less 
civilized ages may be freely admitted, but until 
German scientists, philosophers, educators, and 
even doctors of divinity attempted to justify this 
wanton outrage, it had been hoped that mankind 
had made some progress since the times of 
Wallenstein and Tilly. 

The verdict of Civilization in this respect will be 
little affected by the ultimate result of the war, for 
even if Germany should emerge from this titanic 
conflict as victor, and become, as it would then 
undoubtedly become, the first power in the world, 
it would none the less be a figure for the "time 
of scorn to point its slow unmoving finger at." 
To the eulogists of Alexander the Great, Seneca 
was wont to say, "Yes, but he murdered Callis- 
thenes," and to the eulogists of victorious Ger- 

190 



The Case of Belgium 191 

many, if indeed it shall prove victorious, the wise 
and just of all future ages will say, " Yes, but it 
devastated Belgium." 

The fact that many distinguished and un- 
doubtedly sincere partisans of Germany have 
attempted to justify this atrocious rape, suggests 
a problem of psychology rather than of logic 
or ethics. It strongly illustrates a too familiar 
phenomenon that great intellectual and moral 
astigmatism is generally incident to any passion- 
ate crisis in human history. It shows how pitifully 
unstable the human intellect is when a great man 
like Dr. Haeckel, a scholar and historian like Dr. 
von Mach, or a doctor of divinity like Dr. Dry- 
ander, can be so warped with the passions of the 
hour as to ignore the clearest considerations of 
political morality. 

At the outbreak of the present war Belgium had 
taken no part whatever in the controversy and 
was apparently on friendly relations with all the 
Powers. It had no interest whatever in the Servian 
question. A thrifty, prosperous people, inhabit- 
ing the most densely populated country of Europe, 
and resting secure in the solemn promises, not 
merely of Germany, but of the leading European 
nations that its neutrality should be respected, it 
calmly pursued the even tenor of its way, and 



192 The Evidence in the Case 

was as unmindful of the disaster, which was so 
suddenly to befall it, as the people of Pompeii 
were on the morning of the great eruption when 
they thronged the theatre in the pursuit of plea- 
sure and disregarded the ominous curling of the 
smoke from the crater of Vesuvius. 

On April 19, 1839, Belgium and Holland signed 
a treaty which provided that " Belgium forms an 
independent state of perpetual neutrality. " To 
insure that neutrality, Prussia, France, Great 
Britain, Austria, and Russia on the same date 
signed a treaty, by which it was provided that 
these nations jointly "became the guarantors" of 
such " perpetual neutrality." 

In his recent article on the war, George 
Bernard Shaw, who is inimitable as a farceur but 
not quite convincing as a jurist, says: 

As all treaties are valid only rebus sic stantibus, 
and the state of things which existed at the date of 
the Treaty of London (1839) had changed so much 
since then . . . that in 1870 Gladstone could not 
depend on it, and resorted to a special temporary 
treaty not now in force, the technical validity of the 
1839 treaty is extremely doubtful. 

Unfortunately for this contention, the Treaty 
of 1870, to which Mr. Shaw refers, provided for 



The Case of Belgium 193 

its own expiration after twelve months and then 
added : 

And on the expiration of that time the indepen- 
dence and neutrality of Belgium will, so far as the 
high contracting parties are respectively concerned, 
continue to rest as heretofore on the 1st Article of 
the Quintuple Treaty of the 19th of April, 1839. 

Much has been made by Mr. Shaw and others 
of an excerpt from a speech of Mr. Gladstone in 
1870. In that speech, Mr. Gladstone, as an 
abstract proposition, declined to accept the broad 
statement that under all circumstances the obliga- 
tions of a treaty might continue, but there is noth- 
ing to justify the belief that Mr. Gladstone in any 
respect questioned either the value or the validity 
of the Treaty of 1839 with respect to Belgium. 

Those who invoke the authority of Gladstone 
should remember that he also said : 

We have an interest in the independence of 
Belgium which is wider than that which we may 
have in the literal operation of the guarantee. It 
is found in the answer to the question whether, 
under the circumstances of the case, this country, 
endowed as it is with influence and power, would 
quietly stand by and witness the perpetration of 
the direst crime that ever stained the pages of 
history, and thus become participators in the sin. 



194 The Evidence in the Case 

These words of the great statesman read as a 
prophecy. 

While these treaties were simply declaratory of 
the rights, which Belgium independently enjoyed 
as a sovereign nation, yet this solemn guarantee 
of the great Powers of Europe was so effective that 
even in 1870, when France and Germany were 
locked in vital conflict, and the question arose 
whether Prussia would disregard her treaty obliga- 
tion, the Iron Chancellor, who ordinarily did not 
permit moral considerations to warp his political 
policies, wrote to the Belgian minister in Berlin 
on July 22, 1870: 

In confirmation of my verbal assurance, I have 
the honor to give in writing a declaration, which, in 
view of the treaties in force, is quite superfluous, 
that the Confederation of the North and its allies 
(Germany) will respect the neutrality of Belgium 
on the understanding of course that it is respected 
by the other belligerent. 

At that time, Belgium had so fine a sense of 
honor, that although it was not inconsistent with 
the principles of international law, yet in order to 
discharge her obligations of neutrality in the spirit 
as well as the letter, she restricted the clear legal 
right of her people to supply arms and ammunition 



The Case of Belgium 195 

to the combatants, thus construing the treaty to 
her own disadvantage. 

It can be added to the credit of both France and 
Prussia that in their great struggle of 1870-71, 
each scrupulously respected that neutrality, and 
France carried out her obligations to such an 
extreme that although Napoleon and his army 
could have at one time escaped from Sedan into 
Belgium, and renewed the attack and possibly — ■ 
although not probably — saved France, if they had 
seen fit to violate that neutrality, rather than 
break the word of France the Emperor Napoleon 
and his army consented to the crowning humiliation 
of Sedan. 

In the year 191 1, in the course of a discussion in 
Belgium in respect to the fortifications at Flush- 
ing, certain Dutch newspapers asserted that in the 
event of a Franco-German war, the neutrality of 
Belgium would be violated by Germany. It was 
then suggested that if a declaration were made to 
the contrary in the Reichstag, that such a decla- 
ration, "would be calculated to appease public 
opinion and to calm its suspicions." 

This situation was communicated to the present 
German Chancellor, Von Bethmann-Hollweg, who 
instructed the German Ambassador at Brussels to 
assure the Belgian Foreign Minister, 



196 The Evidence in the Case 

that he was most appreciative of the sentiment 
which had inspired our [Belgium's] action. He 
declared that Germany had no intention of violating 
our neutrality, but he considered that by making a 
declaration publicly, Germany would weaken her 
military preparation with respect to France, and 
being reassured in the northern quarter would 
direct her forces to the eastern quarter. * 

Germany's recognition of the continuing obliga- 
tion of this treaty was also shown when the ques- 
tion of Belgium's neutrality was suggested at a 
debate in the Reichstag on April 29, 1913. In the 
course of that debate a member of the Social 
Democratic Party said : 

In Belgium the approach of a Franco-German war 
is viewed with apprehension, because it is feared 
that Germany will not respect Belgian neutrality. 2 

Herr von Jagow, Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, replied: "The neutrality of Belgium is 
determined by international conventions, and 
Germany is resolved to respect these conventions." 

This declaration did not satisfy another member 
of the Social Democratic Party. Herr von Jagow 
observed that he had nothing to add to the clear 
statement which he had uttered with reference to 
the relations between Germany and Belgium. 

In reply to further interrogations from a member 
of the Social Democratic Party, Herr von Heeringen, 

1 Belgian Gray Book, enclosure No. 12. 

2 Idem. 



The Case of Belgium 197 

Minister of War, stated: "Belgium does not play 
any part in the justification of the German scheme 
of military reorganization; the scheme is justified 
by the position of matters in the East. Germany 
will not lose sight of the fact that Belgian neutrality 
is guaranteed by international treaties." 

A member of the same party, having again referred 
to Belgium, Herr von Jagow again pointed out that 
his declaration regarding Belgium was sufficiently 
clear. z 

On July 31, 1 9 14, the Belgian Foreign Minister, 
in a conversation with Herr von Below, the Ger- 
man Minister at Brussels, asked him whether he 
knew of the assurance which, as above stated, had 
been given by Von Bethmann-Hollweg through 
the German Ambassador at Brussels to the Govern- 
ment at Belgium in 191 1, and Herr von Below 
replied that he did, and added, "that he was 
certain that the sentiments to which expression 
was given at that time had not changed." 

Thus on July ji, 191 4, Germany, through its 
accredited representative at Brussels, repeated the 
assurances contained in the treaty of 1839, as 
reaffirmed in 1870, and again reaffirmed in 191 1 
and 1913. 

Germany's moral obligation had an additional 
express confirmation. 

1 Belgian Gray Book, No. 12. 



198 The Evidence in the Case 

The second International Peace Conference was 
held at The Hague in 1907. There were present 
the representatives of forty-four nations, thus mak- 
ing as near an approach to the poet's dream of the 
"federation of the world" and the " parliament of 
man" as has yet been possible in the slow progress 
of mankind. 

That convention agreed upon a certain declara- 
tion of principles, and among the signatures 
appended to the document was the representative 
of His Majesty, the German Emperor. 

They agreed upon certain principles of interna- 
tional morality, most of them simply declaratory 
of the uncodified international law then existing, 
and these were subsequently ratified by formal 
treaties of the respective governments, including 
Germany, which were deposited in the archives of 
The Hague. While this treaty as an express 
covenant was not binding, unless all belligerents 
signed it, yet, it recognized an existing moral ob- 
ligation. The Hague Peace Conference proceeded 
to define the rights of neutral powers, and in so 
doing simply reaffirmed the existing international 
law. 

The pertinent parts of this great compact, with 
reference to the sanctity of neutral territory, are as 
follows : 



The Case of Belgium 199 

CONVENTION V 

CHAPTER I.— "THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF 
NEUTRAL POWERS 

ARTICLE I. 

The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable. 

ARTICLE II. 

Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of 
either munitions of war or supplies across the territory 
of a neutral Power. 

ARTICLE X. 

The fact of a neutral Power resisting, even byforce y 
attempts to violate its neutrality cannot be regarded as 
a hostile act. 

Notwithstanding these assurances, it had been 
from time to time intimated by German military 
writers, and notably by Bernhardi, that Germany 
would, in the event of a future war, make a quick 
and possibly a fatal blow at the heart of France 
by invading Belgium upon the first declaration of 
hostilities, and it was probably these intimations 
that led the Belgian Government on July 24, 19 14, 
to consider: 

Whether in the existing circumstances, it would 
not be proper to address to the Powers, who had 
guaranteed Belgium's independence and its neutral- 
ity, a communication for the purpose of confirming 
to them its resolution to carry out the international 



200 The Evidence in the Case 

duties which are imposed upon it by treaties in the 
event of war breaking out on the Belgian frontiers. 

Confiding in the good faith of France and Ger- 
many, the Belgian Government concluded that 
any such declaration was premature. 

On August 2, 1914, the war having already 
broken out, the Belgian Foreign Minister took oc- 
casion to tell the German Ambassador that France 
had reaffirmed its intention to respect the neu- 
trality of Belgium, and Herr von Below, the 
German Ambassador, after thanking Davignon 
for his information, added that up to the present 
he had not been 

instructed to make us any official communication, 
but we were aware of his personal opinion respecting 
the security with which we had the right to regard 
our eastern neighbors. I [Davignon] replied at 
once that all we knew of the intentions of the latter, 
intentions set forth in many former interviews, did 
not allow us to doubt their [Germany's] perfectly 
correct attitude toward Belgium. 

It thus appears that as late as August 2, 1914, 
Germany had not given to Belgium any intimation 
as to its intention, and, what is more important, it 
had not either on that day or previously made any 
charge that Belgium had in any way violated its 
obligations of neutrality, or that France had committed 
any overt act in violation thereof. 



The Case of Belgium 201 

On July 31, 1914, England, not unreasonably 
apprehensive as to the sincerity of Germany's oft- 
repeated protestations of good faith, directed the 
English Ambassadors at Paris and Berlin to ask 
the respective governments of those countries 
"whether each is prepared to respect the neu- 
trality of Belgium, provided it is violated by no 
other Power." 

This question was communicated by Sir Edward 
Grey to the Belgian Government, with the addition 
that he (Sir Edward Grey) asked that "the 
Belgian Government will maintain to the utmost 
of her power her neutrality which I desire, and 
expect other Powers to uphold and observe." 

Pursuant to these instructions, the English 
Ambassador to Paris, on the night of July 31 , 1914, 
called upon Viviani, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
and on the same night received a reply which is 
reported by Sir F. Bertie to Sir Edward Grey, as 
follows : 

French Government is resolved to respect the 
neutrality of Belgium, and it would be only in the 
event of some other Power violating that neutrality 
that France might find herself under the necessity, 
in order to assure defense of her own security, to act 
otherwise. This assurance has been given several 
times. The President of the Republic spoke of it 
to the King of the Belgians, and the French Minister 



202 The Evidence in the Case 

to Brussels has spontaneously renewed the assur- 
ance to the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs 
to-day. x 

Confirming this, the French Minister at Brussels, 
on August ist, made to the Belgian Foreign Minis- 
ter the following declaration : 

I am authorized to declare that in the event of 
an international conflict, the government of the 
Republic will, as it has always declared, respect 
the neutrality of Belgium. In the event of this neu- 
trality not being respected by another Power, the 
French Government, in order to insure its own 
defense, might be led to modify its attitude. 2 

On July 31, 1 9 14, the English Ambassador at 
Berlin saw the German Secretary of State, and 
submitted Sir Edward Grey's pointed interroga- 
tion, and the only reply that was given was that 
"he must consult the Emperor and the Chancellor 
before he could possibly answer, " and the German 
Secretary of State very significantly added that 
for strategic reasons it was "very doubtful whether 
they would return any answer at all." 

Goschen also submitted the matter to the Ger- 
man Chancellor, who also evaded the question by 
stating that "Germany would in any case desire 

1 English White Paper, No. 125. 

2 Belgian Gray Paper } No. 15. 



The Case of Belgium 203 

to know the reply returned to you [the English 
Ambassador] by the French Government." 

That these were mere evasions the events on the 
following day demonstrated. 

On August 1st, Sir Edward Grey saw the German 
Ambassador in London, and the following signifi- 
cant conversation took place : 

I told the German Ambassador to-day that the 
reply of the German Government with regard to 
the neutrality of Belgium was a matter of very 
great regret, because the neutrality of Belgium 
affected feeling in this country. If Germany 
could see her way to give the same assurance as 
that which had been given by France it would 
materially contribute to relieve anxiety and tension 
here. On the other hand, if there were a violation 
of the neutrality of Belgium by one combatant, 
while the other respected it, it would be extremely 
difficult to restrain public feeling in this country. 
I said that we had been discussing this question at 
a Cabinet meeting, and as I was authorized to tell 
him this I gave him a memorandum of it. 

He asked me whether, if Germany gave a 
promise not to violate Belgian neutrality, we 
would engage to remain neutral. 

I replied that I could not say that; our hands 
were still free, and we were considering what our 
attitude should be. All I could say was that our 
attitude would be determined largely by public 
opinion here, and that the neutrality of Belgium 
would appeal very strongly to public opinion here. 



204 The Evidence in the Case 

I did not think that we could give a promise of 
neutrality on that condition alone. J 

On the following day, August 2d, the German 
Minister at Brussels handed to the Belgian Foreign 
Office the following "highly confidential" docu- 
ment. After stating that "the German Govern- 
ment has received reliable information, according 
to which the French forces intend to march on the 
Meuse, by way of Givet and Namur," and after 
suggesting a "fear that Belgium, in spite of its best 
will, will be in no position to repulse such a largely 
developed French march without aid," the docu- 
ment adds : 

It is an imperative duty for the preservation of 
Germany to forestall this attack of the enemy. 
The German Government would feel keen regret 
if Belgium should regard as an act of hostility 
against herself the fact that the measures of the 
enemies of Germany oblige her on her part to 
violate Belgian territory. 2 

Some hours later, at 1.30 a.m. on August 3d, 
the German Minister aroused the Belgian Secre- 
tary General for the Minister of Foreign Affairs 
from his slumbers and, 

asked to see Baron von der Elst. He told him that 
he was instructed by his Government to inform us 

1 English White Paper, No. 123, 3 Belgian Gray Book, No. 20. 



The Case of Belgium 205 

that French dirigibles had thrown bombs, and that 
a patrol of French cavalry, violating international 
law, seeing that war was not declared, had crossed 
the frontier. 

The Secretary General asked Herr von Below 
where these events had taken place; in Germany, 
he was answered. Baron von der Elst observed 
that in that case he could not understand the 
object of his communication. Herr von Below said 
that these acts, contrary to international law, were 
of a nature to make one expect that other acts con- 
trary to international law would be perpetrated by 
France. * 



As to these last communications, it should be 
noted that the German Government, neither then 
nor at any subsequent time, ever disclosed to the 
world the "reliable information," which it claimed 
to have of the intentions of the French Govern- 
ment, and the event shows beyond a possibility of 
contradiction that at that time France was un- 
prepared to make any invasion of Belgium or even 
to defend its own north-eastern frontier. 

It should further be noted that the alleged 
aggressive acts of France, which were made the 
excuse for the invasion of Belgium, according to 
the statement of the German Ambassador himself, 
did not take place in Belgium but in Germany. 

1 Belgian Gray Paper, No. 21. 



206 The Evidence in the Case 

On August 3d, at 7 o'clock in the morning, 
Belgium served upon the German Ambassador 
at Brussels the following reply to the German 
ultimatum, which, after quoting the substance of 
the German demand, continued: 

This note caused profound and painful surprise 
to the King's Government. 

The intentions which it attributed to France 
are in contradiction with the express declarations 
which were made to us on the 1st August in the 
name of the Government of the Republic. 

Moreover, if, contrary to our expectation, a 
violation of Belgian neutrality were to be com- 
mitted by France, Belgium would fulfill all her 
international duties, and her army would offer the 
most vigorous opposition to the invader. 

The treaties of 1839, confirmed by the treaties 
of 1870, establish the independence and the neu- 
trality of Belgium under the guarantee of the 
Powers, and particularly of the Government of His 
Majesty the King of Prussia. 

Belgium has always been faithful to her inter- 
national obligations; she has fulfilled her duties 
in a spirit of loyal impartiality; she has neglected 
no effort to maintain her neutrality or to make it 
respected. 

The attempt against her independence, with which 
the German Government threatens her, would 
constitute a flagrant violation of international law. 
No strategic interest justifies the violation of that 
law. 



The Case of Belgium 207 

The Belgian Government would, by accepting the 
propositions which are notified to her, sacrifice the 
honor of the nation while at the same time betraying 
her duties toward Europe. 

Conscious of the part Belgium has played for 
more than eighty years in the civilization of the 
world, she refuses to believe that her independence 
can be preserved only at the expense of the viola- 
tion of her neutrality. 

If this hope were disappointed the Belgian 
Government has firmly resolved to repulse by 
every means in her power any attack upon her 
rights. 

In the records of diplomacy there are few 
nobler documents than this. Belgium then knew 
that she was facing possible annihilation. Every 
material interest suggested acquiescence in the 
peremptory demands of her powerful neighbor. 
In the belief that then so generally prevailed, and 
which recent events have somewhat modified, the 
success of Germany seemed probable, and if so, 
Belgium, by facilitating the triumph of Germany, 
would be in a position to participate in the spoils 
of the victory. 

If Belgium had regarded her honor as lightly as 
Germany and felt that the matter of self-preser- 
vation would excuse any moral dereliction, she 
would have imitated the example of Luxemburg, 
also invaded, and permitted free passage to the 



208 The Evidence in the Case 

German army without material loss of her material 
prosperity, but with a fatal sacrifice to her national 
honor. 

Even under these conditions Belgium evidently 
entertained a hope that Germany at the last 
moment would not, in view of its promises and the 
protest of Belgium, commit this foul outrage. 

The military attache of the French Government, 
being apprised of Germany's virtual declaration 
of war, offered "the support of five French army 
corps to the Belgian Government," and in reply 
Belgium, still jealously regardful of her obliga- 
tion of neutrality, replied : 

We are sincerely grateful to the French Govern- 
ment for offering eventual support. In the actual 
circumstances, however, we do not propose to 
appeal to the guarantee of the Powers. The Belgian 
Government will decide later on the action which 
they think it necessary to take. 

As in Caesar's time, the Belgse, of all the tribes 
of Gaul, are in truth "the bravest." 

Later in the evening, the King of Belgium met 
his Ministers, and the offer of France was com- 
municated to them, and again the Belgian Govern- 
ment, still reposing some confidence in the Punic 
faith of Prussia, decided not to appeal to the 



The Case of Belgium 209 

guaranteeing Powers, or to avail itself of the offers 
of France. 

On the following morning at 6 o'clock the 
German Minister handed this formal declaration of 
war to the Belgian Government: 

I have been instructed, and have the honor to 
inform your Excellency, that in consequence of the 
Government of His Majesty the King having de- 
clined the well-intentioned proposals submitted to 
them by the Imperial Government, the latter will, 
deeply to their regret, be compelled to carry out — 
if necessary by force of arms — the measures of 
security which have been set forth as indispensable 
in view of the French menaces. 

Here again, no active violation of Belgium's 
neutrality by France is alleged, only ''French 
menaces." 

The conjecture is plausible that in the case of 
the Prussian General Staff, it was their "own hard 
dealings" which thus taught them to "suspect 
the thoughts of others. " 

On that day the German troops crossed the 
Belgian frontier and hostilities began. 

On the same day, at the great session of the 
Reichstag, when the Imperial Chancellor at- 
tempted to justify to the world the hostile acts of 
Germany, and especially the invasion of Belgium, 



2io The Evidence in the Case 

the pretended defense was thus bluntly stated by 
the German Premier: 

We are now in a state of necessity and necessity 
knows no law. Our troups have occupied Luxem- 
burg and perhaps are already on Belgian soil. 
Gentlemen, that is contrary to the dictates of inter- 
national law. It is true that the French Govern- 
ment has declared at Brussels that France is willing 
to respect the neutrality of Belgium, so long as 
her opponent respects it. We knew, however, that 
France stood ready for invasion. France could 
wait, but we could not wait. A French movement 
upon our flank upon the lower Rhine might have 
been disastrous. So we were compelled to override 
the just protest of the Luxemburg and Belgian 
Governments. The wrong — / speak openly — that 
we are committing we will endeavor to make good as 
soon as our military goal has been reached. Any- 
body who is threatened, as we are threatened, and is 
fighting for his highest possessions, can only have 
one thought — how he is to hack his way through. 

It will be noted that on this occasion, when 
above all other occasions it was not only the duty, 
but to the highest interests of Germany, to give 
to the world any substantial reason for violating 
the neutrality of Belgium, that the defense of 
Germany is rested upon the ground of self-interest, 
— euphemistically called "necessity,'* — and upon 
none other. 



The Case of Belgium 211 

While Von Bethmann-Hollweg's statement 
does state that "France held herself in readiness to 
invade Belgium," there was no intimation that 
France had done so, or had any immediate inten- 
tion of doing so. On the contrary, it was added, 
"France could wait, we {Germany) could not." If 
Belgium had forfeited its rights by undue favors 
to France or England, why did the Chancellor char- 
acterize its protest as "just"? 

How Germany fulfilled the promise of its 
Chancellor, to "make good" the admitted wrong 
which it did Belgium, subsequent events have 
shown. 

It may be questioned whether, since the Thirty 
Years' War, any country has been subjected to 
such general devastating horrors. So little effort 
has been taken by the conqueror to lessen the 
inevitable suffering, that fines have been levied 
upon this impoverished people, which would be 
oppressive even in a period of prosperity. It 
is announced from Holland, as this book goes to 
press, that Germany has imposed upon this war- 
desolated country a fine of $7,000,000 per month 
and an especial fine of $75,000,000, for its 
1 ' violation of neutrality . ' ' 

Were this episode not a tragedy, the sardonic 
humor, which caused the German General Staff 



2i2 The Evidence in the Case 

to impose this monstrous fine upon Belgium for 
its "violation of neutrality/' would have the 
tragi-comical aspects of Bedlam. It recalls the 
fable of the wolf who complained that the lamb 
was muddying the stream and when the lamb 
politely called the wolf's attention to the fact 
that it stood lower down on the river side than the 
wolf, the latter announced its intention to devour 
the lamb in any event. Such is probably the 
intention of Prussia. If it prevail Belgium as 
an independent State will cease to exist and 
it will be mourned as Poland is. Like Poland, it 
may have a resurrection. 

The war having thus commenced between 
Germany and Belgium, the brave ruler of the 
latter country — "every inch a King" — addressed 
to the King of England the following appeal: 

Remembering the numerous proofs of your 
Majesty's friendship and that of your predecessor, 
and the friendly attitude of England in 1870 and 
the proof of friendship you have just given us again, 
I make a supreme appeal to the diplomatic inter- 
vention of your Majesty's Government to safe- 
guard the integrity of Belgium. 1 

In reply to that appeal, which no chivalrous 
nation could have disregarded, Sir Edward Grey 

1 Belgian Gray Paper, No. 25. 



The Case of Belgium 213 

immediately, on August 4th, advised the British 
Ambassador in Berlin as follows : 

We hear that Germany has addressed a note to 
Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs stating that 
German Government will be compelled to carry 
out, if necessary by force of arms, the measures 
considered indispensable. 

We are also informed that Belgian territory has 
been violated at Gemmenich. 

In these circumstances, and in view of the fact 
that Germany declined to give the same assurance 
respecting Belgium as France gave last week in 
reply to our request made simultaneously at Berlin 
and Paris, we must repeat that request, and ask 
that a satisfactory reply to it and to my telegram of 
this morning be received here by 12 o'clock to-night. 
If not, you are instructed to ask for your passports, 
and to say that his Majesty's Government feel 
bound to take all steps in their power to uphold 
the neutrality of Belgium and the observance of a 
treaty to which Germany is as much a party as 
ourselves. 1 

Thereupon Sir Edward Goschen, the British 
Ambassador in Berlin, called upon the Secretary of 
State and stated in the name of His Majesty's 
Government that unless the Imperial Government 

could give the assurance by 12 o'clock that night 
that they would proceed no further with their 

1 English White Paper, No. 159. 



214 The Evidence in the Case 

violation of the Belgian frontier and stop their 
advance, I had been instructed to demand my pass- 
ports and inform the Imperial Government that His 
Majesty's Government would have to take all 
steps in their power to uphold the neutrality of 
Belgium and the observance of a treaty to which 
Germany was as much a party as themselves. 

Herr von Jagow replied that to his great regret 
he could give no other answer than that which he 
had given me earlier in the day, namely, that 
the safety of the Empire rendered it absolute- 
ly necessary that the Imperial troops should ad- 
vance through Belgium. I gave his Excellency 
a written summary of your telegram and, pointing 
out that you had mentioned 12 o'clock as the time 
when His Majesty's Government would expect an 
answer, asked him whether, in view of the terrible 
consequences which would necessarily ensue, it were 
not possible even at the last moment that their 
answer should be reconsidered. He replied that 
if the time given were even twenty-four hours or 
more, his answer must be the same. I said that 
in that case I should have to demand my passports. 
This interview took place at about 7 o'clock. . . . 

I then said that I should like to go and see the 
Chancellor, as it might be, perhaps, the last time I 
should have an opportunity of seeing him. He 
begged me to do so. I found the Chancellor very 
agitated. His Excellency at once began a harangue, 
which lasted for about twenty minutes. He said 
that the step taken by His Majesty's Government 
was terrible to a degree; just for a word — "neutra- 
lity," a word which in war time had so often been 
disregarded — -just for a scrap of paper Great Britain 



The Case of Belgium 215 

was going to make war on a kindred nation who de- 
sired nothing better than to be friends with her. All 
his efforts in that direction had been rendered useless 
by this last terrible step, and the policy to which, 
as I knew, he had devoted himself since his acces- 
sion to office had tumbled down like a house of cards. 
What we had done was unthinkable; it was like 
striking a man from behind while he was fighting 
for his life against two assailants. He held Great 
Britain responsible for all the terrible events that 
might happen. I protested strongly against that 
statement, and said that, in the same way as he and 
Herr von Jagow wished me to understand that for 
strategical reasons it was a matter of life and death 
to Germany to advance through Belgium and vio- 
late the latter's neutrality, so I would wish him to 
understand that it was, so to speak, a matter of "life 
and death" for the honor of Great Britain that she 
should keep her solemn engagement to do her utmost 
to defend Belgium's neutrality if attacked. That 
solemn compact simply had to be kept, or what 
confidence could any one have in engagements 
given by Great, Britain in the future? The 
Chancellor said, "But at what price will that com- 
pact have been kept. Has the British Government 
thought of that?" I hinted to his Excellency as 
plainly as I could that fear of consequences could 
hardly be regarded as an excuse for breaking solemn 
engagements, but his Excellency was so excited, so 
evidently overcome by the news of our action, and so 
little disposed to hear reason, that I refrained from 
adding fuel to the flame by further argument. . . z 

1 British White Paper, No. 160. 



216 The Evidence in the Case 

Here again it is most significant, in view of the 
subsequent clumsily framed defense of German 
apologists, to note that the German Secretary of 
State, Herr von Jagow, and his superior, the Ger- 
man Chancellor, did not pretend to suggest that 
the invasion of Belgium was due to any overt act 
of France. 

With even greater frankness Von Jagow stated 
the real purpose, which was, "to advance into 
France by the quickest and easiest way," and to 
"avoid the more Southern route," which, "in 
view of the paucity of roads and the strength of 
the fortresses," would have entailed "great loss 
of time." 

The damning conclusion as to the guilt of Ger- 
many, which irresistibly follows from these ad- 
mitted facts, is sought to be overborne by a 
pamphlet entitled " The Truth about Germany, " and 
subscribed to by a number of distinguished Ger- 
mans, who are in turn vouched for in America by 
Professor John W. Burgess of Columbia College. 
He tells us that they are the "salt of the earth," 
and "among the greatest thinkers, moralists, 
and philanthropists of the age." To over- 
bear the doubter with the weight of such 
authority we are told that this defense has the 
support of the great theologian, Harnack, the 



The Case of Belgium 217 

sound and accomplished political scientist and 
economist, Von Schmoller, the distinguished philo- 
logian, Von Wilamowitz, the well-known historian, 
Lamprecht, the profound statesman, Von Posadow- 
sky, the brilliant diplomatist, Von Bulow, the 
great financier, Von G winner, the great promoter of 
trade and commerce, Ballin, the great inventor, 
Siemens, the brilliant preacher of the Gospel, 
Dryander, and the indispensable Director in the 
Ministry of Education, Schmidt. (The adjectives 
are those of Professor Burgess.) 

The average American, as indeed the average 
citizen of any country, when his natural passions 
are not unduly aroused, is apt to take a very 
prosaic and dispassionate view of such matters, 
and when he has reached his conclusion based 
upon everyday, commonplace morality, he is not 
apt to be shaken even by an imposing array 
of names, fortified by an enthusiastic excess of 
grandiloquent adjectives. The aristocracy of 
brains has no monopoly of truth, which is often 
best grasped by the democracy of common sense. 

The defense of these notable representatives 
of German thought seems to be based upon the 
wholly unsupported assertion that "England and 
France were resolved not to respect the neutrality 
of Belgium." 



218 The Evidence in the Case 

They say: 

It would have been a crime against the German 
people if the German General Staff had not antici- 
pated this intention. The inalienable right of 
self-defense gives the individual, whose very exist- 
ence is at stake, the moral liberty to resort to 
weapons which would be forbidden except in times 
of peril. As Belgium would, nevertheless, not 
acquiesce in a friendly neutrality, which would 
permit the unobstructed passage of German troops 
through small portions of her territory, although 
her integrity was guaranteed, the German General 
Staff was obliged to force the passage in order to 
avoid the necessity of meeting the enemy on the 
most unfavorable ground. 

In other words, it seemed preferable to the 
German General Staff that it should fight in 
France rather than in Germany, and for this 
reason Belgium must be ruined. 

Notwithstanding this and similar propositions, 
which are so abhorrent in their political immorality, 
it is yet gravely suggested by Dr. Dernberg and 
others that Bernhardi's philosophy does not reflect 
the true thought of the Prussian ruling classes. 
Here are representative theologians, economists, 
historians, statesmen, diplomatists, financiers, in- 
ventors, and educators, who, in invoking the sup- 
port of the educated classes in the United States, 



The Case of Belgium 219 

deliberately subscribe to a proposition at which 
even Machiavelli might have gagged. 

We are further told that "the German troops, 
with their iron discipline will respect the personal 
property and liberty of the individual in Belgium 
just as they did in France in 1870," and these 
scientists, philosophers, and doctors of divinity 
add that "Belgium would have been wise, if it 
had permitted the passage of the German troops," 
for the Belgian people u would have fared well from 
the business point of view, for the army would have 
proved a good customer and paid well. " 

To this defense we are led in the last analy- 
sis, that Belgium should have preferred cash 
to her honor, just as the German General Staff 
preferred dishonor to the sacrifice of an immediate 
military advantage. 

The possibilities of moral casuistry have been 
severely tested in the attempt of these apologists 
for Germany to defend the forcible invasion of 
Belgium. 

The ethical question has been made quite un- 
necessarily to pivot upon the express contractual 
obligations of England, Germany, and France 
with respect to the neutrality of Belgium. The 
indictment of Germany has been placed upon the 
sound but too narrow ground that by the Treaty 



220 The Evidence in the Case 

of 1839, and The Hague Convention of 1907, 
Germany had obligated itself by a solemn pledge 
to respect the neutrality both of Luxemburg and 
Belgium. 

If, however, there had been no Hague Conven- 
tion and no Treaty of 1839, and if Germany, 
England, and France had never entered into re- 
ciprocal obligations in the event of war to respect 
Belgium's neutrality, nevertheless upon the broad- 
est considerations of international law the invasion 
without its consent would be without any justifica- 
tion whatever. 

It is a fundamental axiom of international law 
that each nation is the sole and exclusive judge 
of the conditions under which it will permit an 
alien to cross its frontiers. Its territory is sacro- 
sanct. No nation can invade the territory of 
another without its consent. To do so by com- 
pulsion is an act of war. Each nation's land is its 
castle of asylum and defense. This fundamental 
right of Belgium should not be confused or ob- 
scured by balancing the subordinate equities be- 
tween France, Germany, and England with respect 
to their formal treaty obligations. 

Belgium's case has thus been weakened in the 
forum of public opinion by too insistent reference 
to the special treaties. The right of Belgium and 



The Case of Belgium 221 



of its citizens as individuals, to be secure in their 
possessions rests upon the sure foundation of 
inalienable right and is guarded by the immutable 
principle of moral law, "Thou shalt not steal." 
It was well said by Alexander Hamilton : 

The sacred rights of man are not to be searched 
for in old parchments and musty records ; they are 
written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of 
human nature by the hand of Divinity itself and 
can never be erased by mortal power. 

This truth can be illustrated by an imaginary 
instance. Let us suppose that the armies of the 
Kaiser had made the progress which they so 
confidently anticipated, and had not simply cap- 
tured Paris, but had also invaded England, and 
that, in an attempt to crush the British Empire, 
the German General Staff planned an inva- 
sion of Canada. Let us further suppose that 
Germany thereupon served upon the United States 
such an arrogant demand, as it made upon Bel- 
gium, requiring the United States to permit it to 
land an army in New York, with the accompany- 
ing assurance that neither its territory nor in- 
dependence would be injured, and that Germany 
would generously reimburse it for any damage. 

Let us further suppose — and it is not a very 
fanciful supposition — that the United States 



222 The Evidence in the Case 

would reply to the German demand that under no 
circumstances should a German force be landed in 
New York or its territory be used as a base of 
hostile operations against Canada. To carry out 
the analogy in all its details, let us then suppose 
that the German fleet should land an army in the 
city of New York, arrest its Mayor, and check 
the first attempt of its outraged inhabitants to 
defend the city by demolishing the Cathedral, the 
Metropolitan Art Gallery, the City Hall and other 
structures, and shooting down remorselessly large 
numbers of citizens, because a few non-com- 
batants had not accepted the invasion with due 
humility. 

Although Germany had not entered into any 
treaty to respect the territory of the United 
States, no one would seriously contend that Ger- 
many would be justified in such an invasion. 

The alleged invalidation of the treaty of 1839 
being thus unimportant, Dr. Dernburg and Pro- 
fessor von Mach fall back upon the only remain- 
ing defense, that France had already violated the 
neutrality of Belgium with the latter's consent. 
Of this there is no evidence whatever. We have, on 
the contrary, the express assurance, which France 
gave on the eve of the German invasion both 
to Belgium and England, that it would not violate 



The Case of Belgium 223 

the rights of Belgium, and in addition we have 
the significant fact that when Belgium was 
invaded, and it was vitally necessary that the 
French Army should go with all possible speed 
to its relief and thus stop the invasion and 
save France itself from invasion, it was ten days 
before France could send any adequate support. 
Unhappily it was then too late. 

If it were true that France intended to invade 
Belgium, then of all the blunders that the German 
Foreign Office has made, the greatest was that it 
did not permit France to carry out this step, for 
it would have palliated the action of Germany in 
meeting such violation by a similar invasion, and 
it would thus have been an immeasurable gain for 
Germany and a greater injury to France. 

Germany's greatest weakness to-day is its 
moral isolation. It stands condemned by the 
judgment of the civilized world. No physical 
power it can exercise can compensate for this loss 
of moral power. Even success will be too dearly 
bought at such a price. There are things which 
succeed better than success. Truth is one of them. 

Under the plea of necessity, which means Ger- 
many's desire to minimize its losses of life, Germany 
has turned Belgium into a shambles, trampled 
a peaceful nation under foot and almost crushed its 



224 The Evidence in the Case 

soul beneath the iron tread of its mighty armies. 

Almost wounded unto death, and for a time 
prostrate under the heel of the conqueror, 
the honor of Belgium shines unsullied by any 
selfish interests, personal dishonor, or lack of 
courage. 

It is claimed that there were officers of the French 
Army in Liege and Namur before the war broke 
out. Neither names nor dates have been given, 
and the allegation might be fairly dismissed be- 
cause of the very vagueness of the charge. But 
even if it were true, international law does not 
forbid the officers of one nation serving with the 
armies of another. German officers have for many 
years been thus employed in Turkey and engaged 
in training and developing the Turkish Army, but 
no one has ever contended that the employment 
by that country of German military officers was 
a violation of neutrality, or gave rise to a casus 
belli. 

It is wholly probable that there were some 
German officers in Belgium before the war com- 
menced, and if not, there were certainly hundreds 
of spies, of whose pernicious activities the Belgian 
people were to learn later to their infinite sorrow, 
but because Germany employed an elaborate 
system of espionage in Belgium, it could not 



The Case of Belgium 225 

justify France in invading its territory without its 
permission. 

To a lawyer, who has had experience in the 
judicial ascertainment of truth, there is one con- 
sideration that justifies him in disposing of all these 
vague allegations with respect to French activities 
in Belgium on the eve of the war, and that is that 
Germany has not only failed to give any testimony 
in support of the charges, but it never suggested this 
defense until the judgment of the civilized world 
had branded it with an ineffaceable stain. 

Professor von Mach, a former educator of Har- 
vard University and an apologist for Germany, 
feels this poverty of evidence and has rather 
naively suggested an adjournment of the case. He 
says: 

Did French officers remain in Liege or in any 
other Belgian fortress after hostilities had begun, 
and did France plan to go through Belgium? Ger- 
many has officially made both claims. The first 
can easily be substantiated by The Supreme Court 
of Civilization by an investigation of the prisoners 
of war taken in Belgium. Until an impartial 
investigation becomes possible no further proof 
than the claim made by the German Government 
can be produced. 

As the French officers taken in Belgium are 
presumably in German detention camps, it would 



226 The Evidence in the Case 

seem that Germany should first substantiate its 
defense by names, dates, and places, although even 
then the mere capture of French officers in Bel- 
gium after the invasion had begun does not 
necessarily indicate that they were in Belgium 
before the invasion. 

Dr. von Mach adds in the reply, which he made 
in the New York Times to an article contributed 
by the writer to that journal : 

It is impossible to say here exactly what these proofs 
are which Germany possesses, and which for military 
reasons it has not yet been able to divulge. . . . This 
is an important question, and the answer must be 
left to The Supreme Court of Civilization. The 
weight of the evidence would seem to point to a 
justification of Germany. Yet no friend of Ger- 
many can find fault with those who would wish to 
defer a verdict until such time when Germany can 
present her complete proof to the world, and this 
may be when the war is over. 

This naive suggestion, that the vital question of 
fact should be postponed, and in the meantime 
judgment should be entered for Germany, is 
refreshing in its novelty. Its only parallel was 
the contention of the celebrated Dr. Cook, who 
contended that the world should accept his claim 
as to the discovery of the North Pole and await 
the proofs later. 



The Case of Belgium 227 

Professor von Mach, in his book, " What Germany 
Wants," further explains this dilatory defense and 
amplifies it in a manner that is certainly unusual 
in an historian. He recognizes that the speech of 
the German Chancellor in the Reichstag on August 
4th, in which Von Bethmann-Hollweg admitted 
that the action of Germany in invading Belgium 
was wrong and only justified it on the ground of 
self-preservation, was a virtual plea of guilty by 
Prussia of the crime, of which it stands indicted 
at the bar of the civilized world. 

Germany's scholarly apologist, as amicus curia, 
then suggests that in criminal procedure, when 
a defendant pleads guilty, the Court often re- 
fuses to accept his plea, enters a plea of not guilty 
for him, and assigns counsel to defend the case. 
He therefore suggests that the Chancellor's plea 
of guilty should be disregarded and the Court 
should assign counsel, 

One difficulty with the analogy is that courts 
do not ordinarily refuse to accept a plea of 
guilty. On the contrary, they accept it almost 
invariably, for why try the guilt of a man when he 
himself in the most formal way acknowledges it? 

The only instance in which a court does show 
such consideration to a prisoner is when the de- 
fendant is both poor and ignorant. Then, and 



228 The Evidence in the Case 

only then, with a fine regard for human right, is 
the procedure suggested by Prof, von Mach 
followed. 

To this humiliating position, Professor von 
Mach as amicus curi(B consigns his great nation. 
For myself, as one who admires Germany and be- 
lieves it to be much greater and truer than its 
ruling caste or its over-zealous apologists, I refuse 
to accept the justification of such an absurd and 
degrading analogy. 

The blunt acknowledgment of the German 
Chancellor in the Reichstag, already quoted, is 
infinitely preferable to the disingenuous defenses 
of Germany's ardent but sophistical apologists. 
Fully recognizing the import of his words, Von 
Bethmann-Hollweg, addressing the representa- 
tives of the German nation, put aside with admir- 
able candor all these sophistical artifices and 
rested the defense of Germany upon the single 
contention that Germany was beset by powerful 
enemies and that it was a matter of necessity for 
her to perpetrate this "wrong" and in this manner 
to "hack her way through." 

This defense is not even a plea of confession and 
avoidance. It is a plea of "Guilty" at the bar of 
the world. It has one merit. It does not add to 
the crime the aggravation of hypocrisy. 



The Case of Belgium 229 

After the civilized world had condemned the 
invasion of Belgium with an unprecedented ap- 
proach to unanimity, the German Chancellor 
rather tardily discovered that public opinion was 
still a vital force in the world and that the strategic 
results of the occupation of Belgium had not 
compensated for the moral injury. For this reason 
he framed five months after this crime against 
civilization a belated defense, which proved so 
unconvincing that the Bernhardi plea of military 
necessity is clearly preferable, as at least having 
the merit of candor. 

After proclaiming to the world that the German 
Foreign Office had discovered in Brussels certain 
secret documents, which disclosed the fact that 
the neutrality of Belgium at the time of the in- 
vasion was a sham and after the civilized world had 
refused to accept this bald and unsupported 
assertion, as it had also refused to accent the 
spurious evidence of a well-known Arctic explorer, 
the German Foreign Office in December, 19 14 
published its alleged proofs. 

The first purported to be a report of the Chief 
of the Belgian General Staff to the Minister of 
War and reported his conversations in 1906 with 
a military attache of the British Legation in 
Brussels. 
13 



230 The Evidence in the Case 

The second purported to be a report of similar 
conversations in 191 2 between the same officials. 

In an authorized statement, published on Janu- 
ary 27, 191 5, Sir Edward Grey states that there 
is no record of either of these negotiations in the 
English Foreign Office or the War Office; but this 
fact is not in itself conclusive and as there is no 
evidence that the documents were forged, their 
genuineness should be assumed in the absence of 
some more specific denial. 

The documents, however, do not appreciably 
advance the cause of Germany, for they disclose 
on their face that the conversations were not 
binding on the Governments of England or Bel- 
gium but were simply an informal exchange of 
view between the officials, and what is far more to 
the purpose, the whole of the first conversation of 
April 10, 1906, was expressly based upon the 
statement that "the entry of the English into 
Belgium would take place only after the violation of 
our neutrality by Germany. " 

The second document also shows that the Bel- 
gian Chief of Staff expressly stated that any in- 
vasion of Belgium by England, made to repel a 
prior German invasion, could not take place with- 
out the express consent of Belgium, to be given 
when the occasion arose, and it is further evident 



The Case of Belgium 231 

that the statement of the English military attache 
— clearly a subordinate official to define the foreign 
policy of a great Empire — expressly predicated his 
assumption, that England might disembark troops 
in Belgium, upon the statement that its object 
would be to repel a German invasion of Belgian 
territory. 

If it be asked why England and Belgium were 
thus in 1906 and 191 2 considering the contingency 
of a German invasion of Belgium and the method 
of effectually repelling it, the reply is obvious that 
such invasion, in the event of a war between Ger- 
many and France, was a commonplace of German 
military strategists. Of this purpose they made 
little, if any, concealment. The construction by 
Germany of numerous strategic railway lines on 
the Belgian frontier, which were out of proportion 
to the economic necessity of the territory, gave to 
Europe some indication of Germany's purpose and 
there could have been little doubt as to such 
intention, if Germany had not, through its Foreign 
Office, given, as previously shown, repeated and 
continuous assurances to Belgium that such was 
not its intention. 

The German Chancellor — whose stupendous 
blunders of speech and action in this crisis will be 
the marvel of posterity — has further attempted to 



232 The Evidence in the Case 

correct his record by two equally disingenuous 
defenses. Speaking to the Reichstag on December 
2, 1914, he said: 

When on the 4th of August I referred to the 
wrong which we were doing in marching through 
Belgium, it was not yet known for certain whether 
the Brussels Government in the hour of need would 
not decide after all to spare the country and to 
retire to Antwerp under protest. You remember 
that, after the occupation of Liege, at the request of 
our army leaders I repeated the offer to the Belgian 
Government. For military reasons it was absolute- 
ly imperative that at the time, about the 4th of 
August, the possibility for such a development 
shoiild be kept open. Even then the guilt of the 
Belgian Government was apparent from many a sign, 
although I had not yet any positive documentary 
proofs at my disposal. 

This is much too vague to excuse a great crime. 
The guilt of Belgium is said to be "apparent from 
many a sign, " but what these signs are the Chan- 
cellor still fails to state. He admits that they were 
not documentary in character. If the guilt of 
Belgium had been so apparent to the Chancellor 
on August the 4th, when he made his confession of 
wrong doing in the Reichstag, then it is incredible 
that he would have made such an admission. 

As to the overt acts of France, all that the Chan- 
cellor said in his speech of December 2 was "that 



The Case of Belgium 233 

France's plan of campaign was known to us and 
that it compelled us for reasons of self-preserva- 
tion to march through Belgium." But it is again 
significant that, speaking nearly five months after 
his first public utterance on the subject and with a 
full knowledge that the world had visited its 
destructive condemnation upon Germany for its 
wanton attack upon Belgium, the Chancellor can 
still give no specific allegation of any overt act by 
France which justified the invasion. All that is 
suggested is a supposed "plan of campaign. " 

Following this unconvincing and plainly disin- 
genuous speech, the Chancellor proceeded in an 
authorized newspaper interview on January 25, 
191 5 to state that his now famous — or infamous 
— remark about "the scrap of paper" had been 
misunderstood. 

After stating that he felt a painful "surprise to 
learn that my phrase, 'a scrap of paper,' should 
have caused such an unfavorable impression on 
the United States," he proceeds to explain that 
in his now historic interview with the British 
Ambassador, 

he (von Bethmann-Hollweg) had spoken of the 
treaty not as a "scrap of paper" for Germany, but 
as an instrument which had become obsolete through 
Belgium's forfeiture of its neutrality and that Great 



234 The Evidence in the Case 

Britain had quite other reasons for entering into the 
war, compared with which the neutrality treaty 
appeared to have only the value of a scrap of paper. 

Let the reader here pause to note the twofold 
character of this defense. 

It suggests that Germany's guaranty of Bel- 
gium's neutrality had become for Germany "a 
scrap of paper" because of Belgium's alleged 
forfeiture of its rights as a neutral nation, al- 
though at the time referred to the German Chan- 
cellor had not only asked the permission of Belgium 
to cross its territory but immediately before his 
interview with the British Ambassador he had 
publicly testified in his speech in the Reichstag 
to the justice of Belgium's protest. 

The other and inconsistent suggestion is that, 
without respect to Belgium's rights under the 
treaty of 1839, the violation of its territory by 
Germany was not the cause of England's interven- 
tion ; but obviously this hardly explains the German 
Chancellor's contemptuous reference to the long 
standing and oft repeated guaranty of Belgium's 
neutrality as merely a "scrap of paper. " 

Having thus somewhat vaguely suggested a 
twofold defense, the Chancellor, without impeach- 
ing the accuracy of Goschen's report of the inter- 
view, then proceeded to state that the conversation 



The Case of Belgium 235 

in question took place immediately after his 
speech in the Reichstag, in which, as stated, 
he had admitted the justice of Belgium's protest 
against the violation of its territory, and he adds 
that, 

when I spoke, I already had certain indications but 
no absolute proof upon which to base a public ac- 
cusation that Belgium long before had abandoned 
its neutrality in its relations with England. Never- 
theless I took Germany's responsibilities toward the 
neutral States so seriously that I spoke frankly of 
the wrong committed by Germany. 

If the German Chancellor is truthful in his state- 
ment that on August the 4th, when he spoke in 
the Reichstag and an hour later had his conversa- 
tion with Goschen, he had "certain indications" 
that Belgium had forfeited its rights as an indepen- 
dent nation by hostile acts, then the German Chan- 
cellor took such a serious view of " Germany's 
responsibilities" that, without any necessity or 
justification, he indicted his country at the bar of 
the whole world with a flagrant wrong. If he 
could not at that time justify the act of the 
German General Staff, he should at least have 
been silent, but, according to his incredible state- 
ment, although he had these "certain indications" 



236 The Evidence in the Case 

and thus knew that Germany, in invading Belgium, 
was simply attacking an already hostile country, 
he deliberately explains, not only to his nation 
but to the whole world, that such invasion was a 
wrong and had no justification in international 
law. How can any reasonable man, whose eyes 
are not blinded with the passions of the hour, 
accept this explanation? 

It is even more remarkable that immediately 
following the session of the Reichstag, when he 
had his interview with Goschen, the German 
Chancellor never suggested in his own defense or 
that of his country, that he had " certain indica- 
tions, " which justified the action that day taken, 
although he then knew that, unless he could justify 
it, England would immediately join the already 
powerful foes of Germany. 

The reader need only reread Goschen 's report 
of that interview (ante, p. 214) to know how dis- 
ingenuous this belated explanation is. With the 
whole world ringing with the infamous phrase, the 
German Chancellor, after five months of reflection, 
can only make this pitiful defense. Its acceptance 
subjects even the most credulous to a severe strain. 
It exhausts the limit of gullibility. 

The defense wholly ignores the fact that the 
Chancellor had previously sought to bribe Eng- 



The Case of Belgium 237 

land to condone in advance the invasion of Bel- 
gium by Germany, and that Germany had also 
coerced Luxemburg into a passive acquiescence in a 
similar invasion, and there is as yet no pretense 
that Luxemburg had failed in its obligation of 
neutrality. 

Should the judgment of the civilized world 
turn from the terrible fate of Belgium and con- 
sider the wrong that was done to Luxemburg, 
then the German Chancellor may, unless better 
advised, frame further maladroit excuses with 
reference to that country. 

All these explanations, as senseless as they are 
false, and savoring more of the tone of a crim- 
inal court then that of an imperial chancellery, 
should shock those who admire historic Germany. 
They are unworthy of so great a nation. Bis- 
marck would never have stooped to such pitiful 
and transparent deception. The blunt candor of 
Maximilian Harden, which we have already 
quoted on page 12, is infinitely preferable and the 
position of Germany at the bar of the civilized 
world will improve, when its maladroit Chancellor 
has the courage and the candor to say, as Harden 
did, that all this was done because Germany 
regarded it as for its vital interests and because 
" we willed it." 



238 The Evidence in the Case 

Unless our boasted civilization is the thinnest 
veneering of barbarism ; unless the law of the world 
is in fact only the ethics of the rifle and the con- 
science of the cannon; unless mankind, after 
uncounted centuries, has made no real advance in 
political morality beyond that of the cave dweller, 
then this answer of Germany cannot satisfy the 
" decent respect to the opinions of mankind." 
It is the negation of all that civilization stands for, 

Belgium has been crucified in the face of the 
world. Its innocence of any offense, until it was 
attacked, is too clear for argument. Its voluntary 
immolation to preserve its solemn guarantee of 
neutrality will "plead like angels, trumpet- tongued, 
against the deep damnation of its taking off." 

It may be questioned whether, since the fall of 
Poland, Civilization has been stirred to more pro- 
found pity and intense indignation than by this 
wanton outrage. Pity, radiating to the utmost 
corners of the world by the "sightless couriers of 
the air, " 

"Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye 
That tears shall drown the wind." 

Was it also, as with Macbeth, a case of 

"Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself 
And falls on the other" ? 



The Case of Belgium 239 

Time will tell. 

Had Germany not invaded Belgium, it is an even 
chance that England would not have intervened, 
at least at the beginning of the war. 

Germany could have detached a relatively 
small part of its army to defend its highly fortified 
Western frontier, and leaving France to waste its 
strength on frontal attacks on that almost im- 
pregnable line of defense, Germany with the bulk of 
its army and that of Austria could have made a 
swift drive at Russia. 

Is it not possible that that course would have 
yielded better results than the fiasco, which 
followed the fruitless drive at Paris? 

If Germany succeeds, it will claim that " noth- 
ing succeeds like success," and to the disciples of 
Treitschke and Bernhardi this will be a sufficing 
answer. 

If it fail, posterity will be at a loss to determine 
which blundered the worst, the German Foreign 
Office or its General Staff, its diplomats or its 
generals. 



. _ 



. _. - 



•- - -' _, 



crriie; 



_. 



ic ::: 



i : : n 



;_: 



The Judgment of the World 241 

Even more impressive to the sincere friends of 
peace is the significant fact that concurrently with 
the most amazing display of physical force that 
the world has ever known has come a direct appea 1 
by the belligerent nations to the neutral States, 
and especially to the United States, not for practi- 
cal co-operation in the hostilities but for moral 
sympathy. 

All past wars are insignificant in dimensions in 
comparison with this. The standing army of the 
Roman Empire, according to the estimate of 
Gibbon, did not exceed 400,000, and guarded 
that mighty Empire from the Euphrates to the 
Thames. The grand army of Napoleon , which \ 
, 'A to mark the maximum of human e: 

in the art ( and h he crossed a 

century ago the Xiemen, did not exceed 700,000. 
To-day at least fifteen million! of men are engaged 
in a titanic le, with ' destruc- 

tion, to which all past devices in the science of 
ion are insignificant. 

Apparently, therefore, tl aficist 

little better than a rainbow, a rainbow of 
perhaps, but still - formed by 

the rays of God e shining through the V 

uman pity. 

But when, in cor/:-, st (x mazing display of 



242 The Evidence in the Case 

physical power, there is contrasted an equally 
unprecedented desire on the part of the contending 
nations to justify their case at the bar of public 
opinion and to gain the moral sympathy of the 
neutral States, then it is seen that the "decent 
respect to the opinions of mankind" is still a 
mighty factor in human affairs, and the question as 
to the judgment of the world, upon the moral 
issues raised by this great controversy, becomes not 
merely of academic but of great practical interest. 
What that judgment will be it is not difficult 
to determine, for the evidence in the case can 
admit of but one conclusion. It may be, as Mr. 
George Bernard ' that in the contending 

nations, the ears are too greatly deafened by the 
roar of the cannon and the eye: sided by the 

>ke of battle late conclu- 

But in the neutral States of the world, and 

scially in that greatest of all the neutral Powers, 
the United States of America, a judgment has 

'. pronounced that is unmistakable. 
. great Republic is more free than any other 
nation to reach a just conclusion "without fear, 

or, or affection." Without alliances with any 
er and with no practical interest in the Euro- 
pean balance of power, itself composed of men 
of all the contending nations, it can, above every 



The Judgment of the World 243 

other people, proceed to judgment, "with malice 
toward none and with charity for all." 

It is a tribute to its unique position among the 
nations of the world that from the beginning of the 
war each of the contending Powers has invoked 
its judgment. The Kaiser, the President of the 
French Republic, and the King of Belgium have 
each in an especial way sought its moral support, 
while to the other nations the question of the 
attitude of the United States has been one of 
practical and recognized importance. 

If the United States is thus a moral arbiter in the 
greatest war of history, its judgment is now, and 
may hereafter increasingly become, a potential 
factor of great significance. 

The nature of that judgment is already apparent 
to all men. The people of the United States, 
numbering nearly one hundred millions, have 
reached, with an amazing approach to unanimity, 
certain clear and definite conclusions. 

These conclusions maybe summarized as follows: 

I. That Germany and Austria in a time of 
profound peace secretly concerted to impose their 
will upon Europe in a matter affecting the balance 
of power. Whether in so doing they intended to 
precipitate a European war to determine the 
hegemony of Europe is not satisfactorily established, 



244 The Evidence in the Case 

although their whole course of conduct suggests 
this as a possibility. They made war almost in- 
evitable by (a) issuing an ultimatum that was 
grossly unreasonable and disproportionate to any 
grievance that Austria may have had, and (b) in 
giving to Servia and Europe insufficient time to 
consider the rights and obligations of all interested 
nations. 

2 . That Germany had at all times the power to 
induce Austria to preserve a reasonable and con- 
ciliatory course, but at no time effectively exerted 
its influence. On the contrary, it certainly 
abetted, and possibly instigated, Austria in its 
unreasonable course. 

3. That England, France, Italy, and Russia 
throughout the diplomatic controversy sincerely 
worked for peace, and in this spirit not only 
overlooked the original misconduct of Austria but 
made every reasonable concession in the hope of 
preserving peace. 

4. That Austria, having mobilized its army, 
Russia was reasonably justified in mobilizing its 
forces. Such act of mobilization was the right of 
any sovereign State, and as long as the Russian 
armies did not cross the border or take any aggres- 
sive action, no other nation had any just right to 
complain, each having the same right to make 
similar preparations. 

5. That Germany, in abruptly declaring war 
against Russia for failure to demobilize, when the 
other Powers had offered to make any reasonable 
concession and peace parleys were still in progress, 
precipitated the war. 

6. That the invasion of Belgium by Germany was 



The Judgment of the World 245 

without any provocation and in violation of Bel- 
gium's inherent rights as a sovereign State. The 
sanctity of its territory does not depend exclusively 
upon the Treaty of 1839 or The Hague Convention, 
but upon fundamental and axiomatic principles 
of international law. These treaties were simply 
declaratory of Belgium's rights as a sovereign 
nation and simply reaffirmed by a special covenant 
the duty of Germany and the other Powers to 
respect the neutrality of Belgium. 

7. England was justified in its declaration of 
war upon Germany, not only because of its direct 
interests in the neutrality of Belgium, but also 
because of the ethical duty of the strong nations 
to protect the weak upon adequate occasion 
from indefensible wrong. Apart from this general 
ethical justification, England was, under the 
Treaty of 1839, under an especial obligation to 
defend the neutrality of Belgium, and had it failed 
to respect that obligation it would have broken its 
solemn covenant. 

If they are " thrice armed" who have their 
" quarrel just," then England, France, Russia, and 
Belgium can await with confidence, not merely 
the immediate issue of the titanic conflict, but 
also the equally important judgment of history. 



EPILOGUE 

On the evening of July 31, 1914, the author 
reached Basle. The rapid progress of events, 
narrated in this volume, suggested the wisdom of 
continuing the journey to Paris that night, but as 
I wanted to see the tomb of Erasmus in the Basle 
Cathedral I determined to break my long journey 
from St. Moritz. 

It seemed a fitting time to make a pilgrimage to 
the last resting-place of the great humanist phil- 
osopher of Rotterdam and Louvain, for in that 
prodigious upheaval of the sixteenth century, 
which has passed into history as the Reformation, 
Erasmus was the one noble spirit who looked 
with a tolerant and philosophical mind upon 
both parties to the great controversy. He suf- 
fered the fate of the conservative in a radical 
time, and as the great storm convulsed Europe the 
author of the Praise of Folly probably said on more 
than one occasion : " A plague o' both your houses." 
Nearly four centuries have passed since he joined 
the "silent majority," between whom is no quarrel- 
ing, and the desolated Louvain, which he loved, is 

246 



Epilogue 247 

to-day in its ruins a standing witness that immeas- 
urable folly still rules the darkened counsels of men. 

As I reached Basle and saw the spires of the 
Cathedral rising above the Rhine, it seemed to me 
that the great convulsion, which was then rock- 
ing all Europe with seismic violence, was the great- 
est since that of the French Revolution and might 
have as lasting results as the great schism of the 
sixteenth century. 

I was not fated to see the tomb, for when I 
reached my hotel the facilities of civilization had 
broken down so abruptly that if I did not wish to 
be interned in Switzerland I must leave early on 
the following morning for Paris. Transportation 
had almost entirely collapsed, communication was 
difficult, and credit itself was so strained that 
"mine host" of the Three Kings was disposed 
to look askance even at gold. 

Our journey took us to France by way of Delle. 
Twenty-four hours after we passed that frontier 
town, German soldiers entered and blew out the 
brains of a French custom-house officer, thus the 
first victim in the greatest war that the world has 
ever known. 

As we journeyed from Basle to Paris on that 
last day of July the fair fields of France never 
looked more beautiful. In the gleaming summer 



248 The Evidence in the Case 

sun they made a new "field of the cloth of gold," 
and the hayricks looked like the aureate tents of 
a mighty army. It was harvest time, but already 
the laborers had deserted their fields which, al- 
though "white unto the harvest," seemed bereft of 
the tillers. Some had left the bounty of nature to 
join in the harvest of death. From the high pas- 
ture lands of the Alps the herdsmen at the ringing 
of the village church bells had left their herds and 
before night had fallen were on their way to the 
front. 

At Belfort the station was crowded with French 
troops and an elderly French couple came into our 
compartment. The eyes of the wife were red with 
weeping, while the man sank into his seat and with 
his head upon his breast gazed moodily into va- 
cancy. They had just parted with their son, who 
had joined the colors. I stood for a time with this 
French gentleman in the corridor of the train, 
but as he could not speak English or German and 
I could not speak French, it was impossible for us 
to communicate the intense and tragical thoughts 
that were passing through our minds. Suddenly 
he pointed to the smiling harvest fields, by which 
we passed so swiftly, and said " Perdu! perdu!" 
This word of tragical import could have been 
applied to all civilization as well. 



Epilogue 249 

The night of our arrival in Paris I fully expected 
to see a half a million Frenchmen parading the 
streets and enthusiastically cheering for war and 
crying, as in 1870, "a Berlin !■"" I was to witness 
an extraordinary transformation of a great nation. 
An unusual silence brooded over the city. A few 
hundred people paraded the chief avenues, crying 
"down with war!", while a separate crowd of 
equal size sang the national hymn. With these 
exceptions there was no cheering or enthusiasm, 
such as I would have expected from my precon- 
ceived idea of French excitability. Men spoke in 
undertones, with a quiet but subdued intensity of 
feeling rather than with frenzied enthusiasm. 

With a devotion that was extraordinary and a 
pathetically brave submission to a possible fate, 
they seemed to be sternly resolved to die to the 
last man, if necessary, in defense of their noble 
nation. Although I subsequently saw in the 
thrilling days of mobilization many thousands 
of soldiers pass through the railroad stations on 
their way to the front, I never heard the rumble 
of a drum or saw the waving of regimental colors. 

No sacrifice seemed to be too great, whether 
it was asked of man, woman, or child. The spirit 
of materialism for the time being vanished. The 
newspapers shrunk to a single sheet and all com- 



250 The Evidence in the Case 

mercial advertisements disappeared. Theaters, 
art galleries, museums, libraries, closed their doors. 
Upon some streets nearly every shop was closed, 
with the simple but eloquent placard " Gone to join 
the colors. " The French people neither exulted, 
boasted, nor complained. The only querulous 
element was a small minority of the large body of 
American tourists, so suddenly caught in a terrific 
storm of human passions, who seemed to feel that 
this Red Sea of blood should part until they could 
walk dry-shod to the shore of safety. 

In Germany similar scenes were enacted and a 
like spirit of courage and self-sacrifice was shown. 

It is a reflection upon civilization that two na- 
tions, each so brave, heroic, and self-sacrificing, 
should, without their consent and by the miserable 
and iniquitous folly of scheming statesmen and 
diplomats, be plunged into a war, of which no man 
can see the end and which has already swept away 
the flower of their manhood. 

One great lesson of this conflict may be that no 
aggressive war ought to be initiated unless the 
policy of that war is first submitted to the masses 
of the people, upon whom the burdens in the last 
analysis fall and who must pay the dreadful penalty 
with their treasure and their lives. 

If the policy of this war had been submitted by 



Epilogue 251 

a referendum to the Austrian and German peoples 
with a full statement of the facts of the Servian 
controversy, would they not have rejected a 
form of arbitrament, which creates but does not 
settle questions, convinces no one, and only sows 
the seeds of greater hatred for future and richer 
harvests of death? If the be-ribboned diplomats 
and decorated generals of the General Staffs at 
Berlin and Vienna had been without power to 
precipitate this war, unless they themselves were 
willing to occupy the trenches on the firing line, 
this war might never have been. 

Nearly five months have passed since that sum- 
mer day, when I passed through smiling harvest 
fields from the mountains to the Seine. The 
trenches, in which innumerable brave men are 
writing with their blood the records of their states- 
men's follies, are filled with snow. The blackest 
Christmas Eve within the memory of living man 
has come and gone, perhaps the blackest, since in 
the stillness of the night there fell upon the wonder- 
ing ears of the shepherds the gracious refrain of 
" Peace on earth, good will among men." On that 
night devout German soldiers sang in their trenches 
in Flanders and along the Vistula the hymn of 
Christmas Eve, "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht." 



252 The Evidence in the Case 

Was this unconscious mockery, an expression 
of invincible faith, or a reversion from habit to the 
gentler associations of childhood? The spirit of 
Christmas was not wholly dead, for it is narrated 
that these brave men in English and German 
trenches on this saddest of Christmas Eves de- 
clared for a few hours of their own volition a 
Christmas truce. 

"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes 
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated 
The bird of dawning singeth all night long, 
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, 
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, 
So hallowed and so gracious is the time. ' ' 

There is not between the men in one trench and 
those in another, each seeking the speediest oppor- 
tunity to kill the other, any personal quarrel. On 
occasion they even fraternize, only to resume 
the work of mutual extermination. They would 
not have quarreled, if the Berchtolds, the von 
Bethmann-Hollwegs, and the von Jagows had 
had sufficient loyalty to civilization to submit 
any possible grievance, which either had, to the 
judgment of Europe. 

A spectacle more ghastly than this " far-flung 
battle line" has never been witnessed since the 



Epilogue 253 

world began, for these soldiers in gray or khaki 
are not savages but are beings of an advanced 
civilization. Their fighting can have in method 
none of the old-time chivalry, such as was wit- 
nessed at Fontenoy when the French commander 
courteously invited his English rival to fire first. 
The present is a chemical, mechanical war, than 
which no circle in Dante's Inferno is more horribly 
repellent. 

When was better justified the terrible but beau- 
tiful imagery in Milton's poem of The Nativity, when 
he says of Nature : 

" Only with speeches fair 
She woos the gentle air 

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, 
And on her naked shame 
Pollute with sinful blame 
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; 
Confounded that her Maker's eyes 
Should look so near upon her foul deformities. ' 

The snow cannot hide the horrors of the present 
conflict. Even night, in other wars more merciful, 
no longer throws its sable mantle of mercy over 
the dying and the dead. By the use of powerful 
searchlights the work of destruction continues. 
As though the surface of the earth were no longer 
sufficient for this malignant exercise of the genius 



254 The Evidence in the Case 

of man, the heavens above and the waters under 
the earth have become at length the battlefields 
of the nations. Even from the infinite azure falls 

" . . . . a ghastly dew 

From the nations' airy navies, grappling in the 
central blue." 

Can all history afford a parallel in malignity to 
the submarine, which, having sunk one vessel 
with all its human lives, calmly awaits, with its 
periscope projecting above the water like the ma- 
lignant eye of a devil fish, the arrival of rescuing 
ships to sink them also? 

Was the gracious refrain of " Peace on earth, 
good will among men," merely a mockery of man's 
hope, making of his civilization a mere mirage? 
Will 

" Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge 
With Ate from his side come hot from Hell ' ' — 

forever crucify afresh and put to an open shame 
the gentle Galilean? 

The angelic song of Bethlehem was neither the 
statement of a fact nor even a prophecy. In its 
true translation it was the statement of a pro- 
found moral truth, upon which in the last analysis 
the pacification of humanity must depend. The 
great promise was "Peace on earth to men of good 
will." 



Epilogue 255 

Peace to the pacific, that was the great message. 
For all others the great Teacher had but one pre- 
diction and that was "the distress of nations, 
. . . men's hearts failing them for fear. " Until 
civilization can grasp the truth that there can be 
no peace until there is among all nations a spirit 
of conciliation and a common desire of justice, 
the cause of peace can be little more than a 
beautiful dream. Hague conventions, inter- 
national tribunals, and agreements to arbitrate, 
while minimizing the causes of war and affording 
the machinery for the pacific adjustment of justici- 
able questions, will yet prove altogether ineffec- 
tual, irrespective of the size of the parchment, 
the imposing character of the seals, or the length 
of the red tape, unless the nations which execute 
them have sufficient loyalty to civilization to ask 
only that which seems just and to submit any dis- 
putable question to the pacific adjustment of an 
impartial tribunal. 

I appreciate that some questions are not justici- 
able and cannot be arbitrated. The historic 
movements of races, like those of glaciers, cannot 
be stopped by mortal hands, and yet even these 
slow-moving masses of ice are stayed by an In- 
visible Hand and melt at length into gentle and 
fructifying streams. To create the universal state 



256 The Evidence in the Case 

and to develop a spirit of paramount loyalty to it 
affords the only solution of this seemingly in- 
soluble problem. 

History affords no more striking illustration of 
this fact than the present war. Each of the con- 
tending nations was pledged to peace. All of 
the greater ones were signatories to the Hague 
Convention, but as the chain can never be stronger 
than its weakest link, the pacific efforts of England, 
France, and Russia to adjust a purely justiciable 
question by negotiation and mediation wholly 
failed because Austria and Germany had deter- 
mined to test the mastery of Europe by an 
appeal to the sword. The fundamental cause of 
the conflict was their lack of loyalty to civilization, 
due to a misguided and perverted spirit of excessive 
nationalism. 

Until with the slow- moving progress of mankind 
the greater unit of the Universal State can be cre- 
ated, it should be the common and equal concern 
of all nations, not merely to defeat this primitive 
appeal to brute force but to make impossible the 
recurrence of such an iniquitous reversion to bar- 
barism. To do this, while any nation unjustly 
appeals to force, force is unhappily necessary, but 
there would be few occasions to repel force by 
force if there were sufficient solidarity in mankind 



Epilogue 257 

to make it the common concern of the civilized 
world to suppress promptly and effectually any 
disturber of its peace. 

If the present wanton attack upon the very 
foundations of civilization had been regarded as 
the common concern of all nations, it would never 
have taken place and might never occur again. 
To prevent such recurrence, thoughtful men of all 
nations should cooperate, so that when the present 
titanic struggle is over, an earnest and universal 
effort can be made to create such a compact be- 
tween the civilized nations as will insure coopera- 
tive effort when any nation attempts to apply the 
torch of war to the stately edifice of civilization. 
May not this great war prove the supreme travail 
of humanity, whereof this nobler era will be 
born? 

It should be the especial duty of the United 
States to lead in this onward movement. It has 
been in no small measure the liberator of mankind. 
Let it now be its pacificator ! Can it do so in any 
better spirit than that voiced by one of the 
noblest of its Presidents at the close of another 
gigantic conflict, of which he was to be the last and 
greatest martyr, when he said: 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see 
17 



258 The Evidence in the Case 

che right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; 
to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him 
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow 
and orphan; and to do all which may achieve and 
cherish a just and lasting peace. 



Ji Selection from the 
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Germany, France, Russia 
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By Heinrich von Treitschke 

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and Luxemburg. Apart from this duty, it is the conviction 01 
England, that it is fighting not only in fulfillment of obligations 
and to prevent France from being crushed for a second time, but 
for self-preservation. The German threat has been made openly 
" first Paris, then London." 

In order that the case for England may be complete, the pub- 
lishers have added an essay by the well-known historian, A. Maurice 
Low. As the title, Great Britain and the War, indicates, England's 
attitude toward the great conflict is clearly portrayed, and her 
reasons for joining therein are ably presented. 

New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London 






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